Has anyone looked into Amazon's new Kindle Vella service? From what they're advertising, it'll be a platform for serial and webnovel authors to self-publish their work on a chapter by chapter basis, while readers pay a small fee (I think 10c each?) to download each new chapter as they're released. Since that's pretty much what I've been doing for the past few years (for FREE, no less) I thought this might be worth checking out. My biggest concern is, how many people are actually going to be interested enough to pay for this? Without paying customers, the service won't last a year, and who knows if I'll be able to republish any stories I put on there once it goes down? What are you guys' thoughts on the whole thing?
This is the first I have heard of it. I don't see it affecting me but I know a guy who incrementally posts new chapters of his current WIP to a blog site. I think I'll run this by him and see if he salutes.
That's essentially what I do, which is why I'm wondering if this would be a good path for me to take.
After seeing your post, I looked up Vella on the Amazon site. It looks to me like it's intended for short story serials. To me, that suggests that each story is more or less a stand-alone, but the series shares main characters and (perhaps) a primary setting and a common back story. I don't know about your work, but the chapters my friend posts are by no means stand-alone. Reading Chapter one introduces one or two, maybe three characters but, at the end of chapter one, you definitely haven't arrived at any sense of completion -- of anything. Likewise, if you open up just Chapter Three or Chapter Six, without having read any preceding chapters, you won't have any idea what's going on or how the characters got to wherever they are. I'm not sure that's what Vella is trying to attract. On the other hand, I recall that some well-known writer a century or so ago (Edgar Rice Burroughs, maybe) had some of his books first appear as serials in some magazine. [Edit to add] https://archive.org/details/AmazingSerials11BurroughsE.R.TheLandThatTimeForgot1927234
That was actually very common. Many of what later became famous novels were originally serialized in magazines, and then usually edited into novel form.
I've been looking at what I can find about it, and it looks like it's for publishing stories in episodic form, like chapter by chapter or section by section. I don't see any mention that each section needs to be a self-contained story. That would be incredibly restrictive and would not match up with what writers and readers are looking for, which is the ability to publish little by little, so readers don't have to wait until the entire book is done to start reading it. And there would be no need, since all the previous sections would already be available, you wouldn't have to start in the middle. I wonder what happens when you're finished and start editing? Does what you've already published in serialized form stand as the first draft, and then readers can also see the finished edit?
I've been looking around too, and quite a few people (on the reader side of things) said they won't be using it because they don't trust indie authors to actually finish any story they begin. I wonder if Amazon will have a way to ensure that these stories don't just get abandoned halfway through?
I wondered about that, too. I have occasionally e-mailed my friend when I've spotted errors (either typos, or things in the story that didn't make sense) in a posted chapter, only to have him e-mail me back, "Yeah, I already fixed that in the final draft."
Amazon is trying to take over the already established serialized sites/apps like radish and wattpad. Which, I believe both of those sites have recently switched hands and are making new changes. Radish just came out with an update concerning earnings and apparently the authors no longer even really understand how much they are making. Anyway, a lot of authors don't seem to like Vella, mostly because it implies exclusivity in the rules while the other serialized sites don't. Plus people seem to think they are earning less than regular publishing but there's no confirmed prices (just an example on their video ad). I'm not used to writing in serialized and I'll likely not use Vella. I think it could present a new opportunity to some writers though. The market is so saturated on amazon in a lot of categories this could provide visibility. I think it'll mostly be a separate market from the the people who buy and borrow completed works though so I'm not sure if new authors could reliable build a platform there that progresses to publishing novels.
I just got an email about this. Here's what it said: "Introducing Kindle Vella Kindle Vella is a new storytelling option from Kindle Direct Publishing to self-publish serialized stories, one short episode at a time. Readers will access Kindle Vella stories in the Kindle iOS app and on Amazon.com. Readers can check out any story by reading the first three episodes for free. After that, they’ll purchase Tokens and redeem them to unlock episodes. Episodes can range from 600—5,000 words and the number of Tokens needed to unlock an episode is determined by the episode’s word count. A new way to earn royalties You’ll earn 50% of what readers spend on the Tokens that are used to unlock your story’s episodes. You’ll also be eligible for a launch bonus based on customer activity and engagement. Readers will have access to Kindle Vella stories in the next few months, so make sure your story is ready and waiting!"
If its a big success I'd bet money on the royalty share going down... that was the experience of Kindle unlimited which when it first launched was a flat share instead of page reads, then switched to page reads with a generous (ish ) KENP which has been on a downward trend ever since not to say its not worth doing but just something the bear in mind, a lot of early KU authors were taken aback
Didn't kindle unlimited change because the system was being horribly abused? I wasn't around during that time but it's always been what I heard. That there was a lot of system cheaters with no actual content, even stuffing books with wingdings and copy and pasting every book they had in every book they published.
the stuffing mostly came later... that was about making books seem like they were much longer than they were to game the KENP
Would it be better to release the story serially or all at once? On one hand, this is a program specifically for serialized stories. On the other, how many people will really be interested in waiting a week for each new chapter to release when they have easy access to completed books?
I imagine there will be plenty of finished serialized stories. You have to indicate on your Kindle Vella book whether it's a story "in progress" or "complete". It'll be the same as series--some people wait to read them until they are complete, some people don't. Either way they have to pay to continue the story.
I think over decided against using Vella, at least for now. There's just too much risk that the whole operation will go down in flames.
