Amazon just announced that it's expanding the scope of Amazon Studios' development efforts by accepting submissions for children's and comedy TV series — anyone is invited to send scripts to Amazon, and the best will be aired on Amazon Instant Video. This new program will work much like the existing Amazon Studios model, which allows film-makers to submit scripts with the potential to receive $10,000 in funding to make a "test" film and potentially a true feature-length film. Submissions for a series come in the form of a five-page description, plus a 22-minute pilot script for comedies (or an 11-minute script for a children's series).

Within 45 days, Amazon will either option the series for $10,000 and move it to its development slate for story guidance and testing, or invite the creator to add the series to the Amazon Studios site for community feedback. While a series is still a long way from making its way to airing on Amazon's Instant Video at that point, the series creator will get $55,000 if the show goes into production. Amazon intends to option at least one series a month and move it into the development slate. While the odds of getting your work "on the air" may still be long (since November 2010, 7,000 movie scripts were submitted to the program), another outlet for prospective film and TV makers to have their creations seen and reviewed doesn't hurt.