Amazon has launched a crowd-editing and -writing service called WriteOn into private beta. In an announcement on the Kindle Author Forums, the company said that the site would act as a “community where readers and writers come together around the creative process to make good stories great and great stories better.”

You can try it now at https://writeon.amazon.com/ with the invite code X9RJTE9H.



The service allows authors to upload chapters and stories to a central author page (here’s mine) and stories percolate to the top based on popularity and likes.

From the forum post:



Whether you want to polish an original work, hone your feedback skills, or just find a group of other passionate readers and writers to connect with, we’re building a community that will support you. Plus, you’ll get a chance to help guide the direction of a new Kindle project that’s still in beta. It’ll be a little experimental, a little seat-of-our-pants, and hopefully a pretty sweet time for all involved.It’s completely free to join. There are no commitments involved with posting your work-you own your stories, always, and can take them down at any time. All you need is the desire to get some good work done and the willingness to help others do the same.Visit Whether you want to polish an original work, hone your feedback skills, or just find a group of other passionate readers and writers to connect with, we’re building a community that will support you. Plus, you’ll get a chance to help guide the direction of a new Kindle project that’s still in beta. It’ll be a little experimental, a little seat-of-our-pants, and hopefully a pretty sweet time for all involved.It’s completely free to join. There are no commitments involved with posting your work-you own your stories, always, and can take them down at any time. All you need is the desire to get some good work done and the willingness to help others do the same.Visit https://writeon.amazon.com/ and enter the code X9RJTE9H to come join us.

The service has been growing over the summer but only recently came to light publicly thanks to The Digital Reader. It isn’t very full-featured – it’s more of a blogging platform right now – but it looks to be well populated with indie titles.

These sorts of services aren’t new but they are potentially lucrative, at least in terms of traffic. Services like Wattpad have millions of users and millions of words uploaded and, to a degree, have spawned some successes. Amazon has attempted to entice indie writers with their Kindle Worlds service, a strange system for uploading and publishing fanfic. WriteOn, however, seems to be aimed at more traditional writing like original fiction and short stories.

Amazon is part of the indie space in a very real way. However, they don’t own a community. WriteOn along with other efforts are a clear attempt to capitalize on this. How well they’ll do is anyone’s guess.