Reading on Kindle Vella

 

What is Kindle Vella? It’s the newest reading and publishing platform on Amazon Kindle. Instead of a full-length novel, it’s like reading an ongoing tv series in episodes. You pay for it in tokens as you go. The number of tokens charged depends on the length of the episode which can be between 600 and 5,000 words (10 tokens for 1,000 words, 20 for 2,000 words, etc). Think of it like one of those toy claw machines you liked when you were a kid.

You put coins (tokens) in and try to grab a toy. Unlike the claw machine, when you unlock a Vella episode with tokens, you are assured a bite-sized read. Even better, Vella gives you three free episodes to try before you buy. They also allow you 200 free tokens (500 at the time of this post) for using their reading platform. Vella stories can be read on computers, tablets, and phones.

Readers can:

FOLLOW the stories they want to keep reading and are notified when a new episode is uploaded.

FAVE their favorite stories. (Stories with the most FAVES are featured on the Vella Leaderboard–this helps get more eyes on the story.)

CROWN their favorite story of the week. (This puts the story in the spotlight.)

THUMBS UP all story episodes they like, signaling the author and other readers the story is worth a read.

PARTICIPATE in POLLS for each story episode if the author chooses to use this feature.

REVIEW each story to let others know what they liked or didn’t like about the story.

*A personal comment about Kindle Vella’s Review system: Authors long for great reviews because hearts and souls were poured into the work. Unfortunately, not all reviews are going to be 5 stars–we all have differing tastes. A negative review is understandable if a reader doesn’t like a story or the writing style. However, if you have a complaint about how the platform chooses to operate (i.e., the token system) please don’t take your frustrations out on the author by leaving a bad review for a story. Complaints about the platform should be addressed by Amazon’s Complaint Department.

Tokens

When your free tokens run out, you can purchase additional tokens to unlock more episodes–because you want to know what happens next and a writer has to eat. Here is the present cost of tokens. As with most things, the more you buy, the less they cost. Disclaimer: Amazon may, at any time, change the pricing on tokens.

My first story, Abernathy Apocalypse, can be found Here.

If you’re interested, here is an in-depth post on how to Publish to Kindle Vella.

Fun Fact: The serial novel dates back to the Victorian era when Charles Dickens, Robert Louis Stevenson, and many other authors published their story pieces in magazines and newspapers. This allowed the not-so-wealthy people to read stories that would have been too expensive to buy in a full-length novel.