Kindle Vella is a new and quite exciting venue from Kindle Direct Publishing that allows authors to self-publish in a serialized fashion. I cannot wait to get my toes into this water! Stories will be available in the Kindle iOS App and on Amazon.
Authors will earn 50% of the Tokens that readers spend to unlock episodes. Wait ... What? Tokens? Readers will be able to read the first three episodes of any story for free. After that, they can purchase tokens and redeem them to unlock episodes. The number of tokens needed to unlock an episode will depend on the episode's word length (episodes can range from 600 - 5,000 words). Authors will be eligible for a launch bonus based on customer activity and engagement.
Readers will have access to Kindle Vella stories within the next few months. I certainly am going to have a continuing story up there! This is so 1920'a noir to me - only then the serial stories run in magazines, and the authors were paid accordingly.
The Beta version of the Kindle Vella library can be found here - Kindle Vella library. This is where authors can start to share their stories. The format is very straightforward: add in the story title, author's name, a 500 character description of the story, an image for the story, a primary category (with an option to add a secondary category), and up to seven tags. Story details can be edited up until the time that the story is published.
At this time it appears that this serial publishing option is open to U.S.-based authors only. The Kindle Vella store should be available within the next few months.
(c) April 2021 Bonnie Cehovet
Reproduction prohibited without written permission from the author.
