That’s what it says on the Kindle Worlds website.
I am sorry to see it gone, but I am not surprised. The only reason I knew about it was because Kevin J. Anderson asked me to co-author a story for it with him. (A crowning moment in my career, let me tell you!) Most people I talked to had never heard of it, and I never once saw Amazon advertize it in any way. (I’m not saying they didn’t– I don’t know. But I never saw anything.) So I am not surprised it “failed”.
Actually, I am not really sure why it failed. I wasn’t on that end of the process. Maybe it was contracts that expired or legalities. Whatever it was, I am sorry to see it gone.
What this means to me is:
- A novella I co-authored with a Big Name Author (Kevin J. Anderson) is no longer available, and never will be again. Because Kevin and I didn’t own the rights to it. (I suppose Kevin and I could call Blake Crouch up and see if the three of us could work out something to re-publish it, but honestly, the sales wouldn’t be enough to warrant the effort on the part of one of us, let alone all three.)
- Two novellas I wrote are no longer available, and never will be again. (Because I don’t own the rights to the world they were set in.) That’s a sad feeling. I put some work into those, and I really liked them.
- I no longer have to feel guilty I didn’t write the third novella that finished the story. (After I started, Amazon changed the rules about what we could write about in the Wayward Pines setting. I contacted them to see about the third story and, after three (?) weeks, they told me I could not.)
- I will no longer be receiving the monthly “royalties” from those stories. They weren’t much, but a (good) cup of coffee every month was something!
Like everything I have done/encountered since I decided to get into writing business, this was a cool experience. I don’t regret it, that’s for sure.
After all, writing this with Kevin J. Anderson lead to him asking me to write a Planet of the Apes story with him, and that was pretty darn cool too!