After being announced in April, Amazon took 3 months to launch the Kindle Vella. This is not a new tablet, but rather a story subscription service that lets you read serial fiction written specifically for the platform.
Serialization is the act of breaking a story into pieces and publishing it at intervals, like a TV show, and judging by the existence of the Kindle Vella, Amazon clearly thinks there is a hunger for this format.
Some may locate this as a captivating throwback to the origins of the novel; After all, traditional writers like Talk Dickens, Jules Verne, and Arthur Conan Doyle have used the serialization format for their works of fiction. And now, in twenty-one, both potential and future writers can use Vella in exactly the same way.
However, before we dive head first into a captivating romance or thrilling thriller, we must oversaturate your excitement with a huge cube of icy reality - there are many asterisks surrounding Vella's release.
It is only free in the US At the moment, both for readers and authors, and it only works on the Vella site or in an iOS application. No, at the moment there is no compatibility with Android, nor the possibility of reading the texts on a real Kindle and also-reader.
So to get a better idea of what Amazon's Kindle Vella story serialization software is, and if you can use it, we've written this guide to answer your burning questions.
Tabla de contenido
Come to the point
- What is it? A digital story serialization service
- At what point did it come out? Now in the USA, to be confirmed elsewhere
- How much is it? More or less € two for twenty with zero words
Amazon Kindle Vella Price
You need to acquire chips to play the Vella series. Each story is divided into episodes, we will see how it goes later, and you must spend tokens to acquire each chapter as you read them.
Essentially, a card is worth one hundred words, so a chapter of six hundred words will require about 6 cards. Simple so far. However, the cost of a token changes according to the amount you purchase.
Cost and value of the Kindle Vella token Number of tokens Cost Cost of each token Number of raw words € two thousand one and ninety-nine 0,0120 zero € five hundred twenty-five € four and ninety-nine 0,009552,500 € one thousand one hundred € nine ninety-nine 0,00910 zero € fourteen ninety-nine 0,0088170 zero
The more tokens you purchase in one transaction, the more affordable each one will be, with multiple bundles to choose from. We have put together a table above so that you can see the packages; the costs are all in US dollars, whereas that is the only currency currently supported.
If you are an avid writer, you should surely know that you only get fifty% of the money spent on your episode, and the other half goes to Amazon. Your money also depends on the package that the reader has bought: if you have chosen a package of better value, that means that you are getting less money per word than if you had chosen the cheaper options.
Visit the Kindle Direct Publishing site to find out how it works, with some examples of what it would accomplish in certain situations. Suffice it to say, you will have to sell a lot of episodes to get real money.
Availability of Amazon Kindle Vella
(Image credit: Amazon)
Today, Kindle Vella can only be used in the USA, whether you are a reader or an author. This means that you cannot read with the service if you live outside the USA, nor can you submit a story through the platform as an author.
We are waiting for official information about the possibility of launching Vella elsewhere, but it is very possible. Amazon regularly launches services in the US before incorporating them elsewhere, such as Halo and Luna.
Now, you can use Vella through the official Kindle Vella site or through an iOS application; there is no Android application now, nor a way to read series on a Kindle e-reader.
So how does the Kindle Vella work?
Using Kindle Vella, an author will divide a story into multiple episodes of six hundred to five thousand words and, in contrast to a standard book, purchase each chapter separately, rather than purchasing the entire story at once.
Amazon advises authors to write stories particularly in serial form, which makes episodes more engaging than if you simply divided a standard book into arbitrary segments.
The authors are going to make the first chapter of the series free, to give readers a taste of the story, and then, if you like what you read, you can pay for each new entry in the story.
Not all of these episodes are going to be free at once, although Amazon advises that each and every one of the authors publish certain ones in advance. New entries could arrive daily, weekly, or more occasionally, depending on the whims of the writer. You can follow a story or an author to receive notifications when there are new free entries.
You can highlight a story you like, to give the author a validating dopamine boost, and once a week you can also bookmark a story you really like; usually preferred works are advised to more readers on the site.
Writers can leave notes at the end of each entry, to thank readers or to add their views on the progress of the story or chapter; some may choose not to, which would make Roland Barthes happy.
Kindle Vella March on Kindle E-Readers?
(Image credit: Avenir)
For whatever reason, Vella is currently not free on Amazon's Kindle e-readers, although those devices are designed for reading.
There is no official justification, but we think it is because the Kindles are designed to require an unusual Internet connection, while Vella needs incessant updates to locate new episodes and also stories. The process of acquiring tokens to purchase a chapter, rather than simply acquiring a book through your Amazon account, could also add an auxiliary step that, in slow-running Kindles, could be boring.
However, one of 2 things is to be expected. First, possibly a software update will make Vella free on existing Kindles.
If not, we would like future Kindle e-readers to include the free service. It's been a while since Amazon last released a replacement book device, and we're waiting for a new Kindle, Kindle Paperwhite, and Kindle Oasis to come out this year (or one of them, at least).
Either way, it is essential that Vella gets to Kindles at some point, as reading stories on a computer screen or iPhone is not as pleasant as doing it on a beautiful electronic ink screen.
