What is Kindle Vella?
S.R. Beaston
Crafty with words, wit, and wisdom, just add caffeine to make it more interesting.
Like many young writers learning their voice, I used to write fanfiction. I didn’t even know the term when I started. Blogs weren’t a wide and popular thing at the time, so I just wrote poetry and fiction on my boxy PC to fill in the story gaps I thought only I could fill. I feel confident that’s how the phrase "If you can’t find the book you want to read, write it" came to be.
FantFiction.net (FFN) was the first site I knew of that popularized serialized entries in a digital form, mainly for those who wrote fan fiction. It was the gateway for a few well-known authors today. Since then we’ve seen sites like Wattpad and Archive of Our Own (AO3) blossom into similar formats. But the practice of writing bite-sized material on a schedule to tell a broader story has been popular since the early 1800s.
One of the biggest online marketplaces has taken this idea and created a place for authors to serialize their works and for readers to sample stories without the standard book price tag. It’s called Kindle Vella.
What is Kindle Vella?
Kindle Vella is part of Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), allowing authors to publish sections of their story in a serialized format. Authors gain royalties from the amount of Tokens spent to unlock their episode, paid for directly by the reader. It is important to note that this service is only available in the US as of now.
Kindle Direct Publishing
Because Kindle Vella is under the umbrella of KDP, you have to be a member of KDP before you can publish on Kindle Vella. The process is simple and there is no charge for $ joining the platform$ .
From the KDP bookshelf, you can access the Kindle Vella Library and start your story.
The serialized story
A serial in literature is one large story published in smaller sections. This is the same as an episode of a tv series—a smaller premise that can conclude at the end, but ties to a bigger picture.
Sherlock Holmes is a great example of a serial. Smaller crimes could be printed as a serial, while an overarching theme and story was being told in the long term.
Episodes
The serials in Kindle Vella are called Episodes. The first three episodes of any story are free to read, with the following episodes available to unlock using Tokens. This allows readers to find investment in the author’s story without feeling cheated, while authors can hone what makes their story interesting through the engagement they may receive on the first three installments.
Your word count per episode is locked at 5,000, with a minimum of 600, so there’s a lot of wiggle room to plot and write your episode.
The audience
Much like social media, the audience has access to interact with the author and the story by ways of liking, following, and commenting on the episodes. This can be great free feedback from those interested and willing to help suggest and critique the work available to them.
Their ability to favorite something also comes as a limited token, so being favorited holds a little more weight than something like a thumbs up from other sites.
The most ‘favorited’ will be featured on the Top Faved list, further indicated by a neatly placed crown over the image.
Tokens
Tokens are the currency readers can purchase to unlock your episodes. The price of each episode is determined by how long it is, with ten tokens being worth 1000 words. Authors receive 50% of all royalties based on the Token Tier.
Token Tier Prices:
200 Tokens (average 8 episodes) - $1.99
525 Tokens (average 21 episodes) - $4.99
1100 Tokens (average 44 episodes) - $9.99
1700 Tokens (average 68 episodes) - $14.99
The guidelines
There are very specific $ Content Guidelines$ to publishing your work with KDP as a whole, as well as Kindle Vella. Your publishing rights, tags, word count, and more can be found here.
Is Kindle Vella worth it for writers?
Kindle Vella seems to be a great way to not only grow an audience, but to learn how to handle feedback, how to structure a story, and how to edit.
A reader's real-time reaction can give insight into what works or doesn’t work within those first three installments. Critique can be implemented and things can be edited after publishing the episode, so your writing can only get stronger. You also learn how to weed out comments that hold no value to your story's growth.
You can get a healthy dose of readers who can tell you if this format is working for them. It’s a great way to gauge if investing in physical publication or putting the whole book on KDP would be worth it in the future. Depending on the audience you accumulate, you may have to adapt your approach.
I wouldn’t suggest going into this thinking you’ll make a side hustle out of blogging random stories. The work you put out does require effort and some basic writing skill, but nothing a person with a desire to write won’t already have in their writer's toolbox. With this in mind, it can be a great way to put your creative ideas out there and possibly get some money from it.
Releasing your story in stages also has the added benefit of rest. You can mold the story as it goes and update previous episodes if something changes without stressing over the complete narrative, as one might do with a novel.
Since it's free to use, Kindle Vella is relatively risk free. You can learn how to write, market, and budget yourself as an indie author through this method.
Kindle Vella, as well as the serialized format, is a perfect entry point for those who aspire to become great writers or experiment with genres and themes. At the very least, it can be a way to earn passive income on that one unconventional story you have bouncing around.
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