![]() Expect this brick wall to extend to Vella.Īlthough I’ve seen mention in the Vella guidelines about nonfiction, the tools for adding episodes only lists fiction categories. For example, readers may “follow” an author on Amazon, but Amazon is highly particular about how authors may, in turn, communicate with their followers. Amazon is notorious for maintaining barriers between their customers and authors. If Vella is a success, expect to see a Kindle Select-style opt-in program to lock authors into the platform.Īlthough Amazon is pitching Vella’s reader engagement, don’t expect them to go too far down this path. In essence, Amazon is playing catch-up for once in the e-publishing business. I suspect Amazon realized Vella had a better chance of getting off the ground if existing serial authors could “port” their work to and from another episodic publisher. It surprises me to see Amazon allowing authors to publish on Vella work from other episodic platforms, as that implies vice-versa is also acceptable. (Radish uses the “episode” term as well, even going so far as to organize stories into “seasons.”)Īmazon loves exclusive deals with authors, as their 70% royalty rate for Kindle Select demonstrates. Likewise, with Vella organized as “episodes,” Amazon is encouraging writers to think less like novelists and more like television writers. As I mentioned in my eulogy to Kindle Scout, readers of that service didn’t vote for books, they nominated them-meaning, the editors had the final say, not the readers. I’ve learned to parse Amazon’s language carefully. Amazon could abandon Vella if it does not generate sufficient interest (and profits), much like they abandoned Scout and Worlds. Kindle Worlds, Kindle Scout, and Kindle Publishing for Blogs are all examples of off-shoots which withered on the vine. These new breed of mobile e-publishers have caught Amazon’s attention, and it’s reacting.Īmazon has a spotty history when it comes to following through. Importantly, their reading experiences are not merely available on smartphones, they’re designed for smartphones. Publishers like Radish, Goodnovel, and others have carved out niches with episodic, pay-as-you-go models. Stepping back, what to make of all this? I have a few big-picture thoughts about Kindle Vella: With Vella, readers are buying chapters on-demand, with the author earning a nickel here and a dime there. ![]() Kindle authors accustomed to $1, $2, or even $3-plus royalties on the sale of a single e-book will need to adjust their expectations. It’s also a telling example of the economics of Vella. It may add up if you build a loyal readership, though. So, while it’s important to know how royalties are calculated, the absolute dollar values are not large at the per-episode level. In their example, the difference in author royalties for a user purchasing a 3,000-word episode is between 13¢ and 15¢. ![]() If a lot of your readers are buying tokens in high bulk, you’ll earn a little less than if your readers bought smaller numbers of them at a time.Īmazon has some math on their help pages. Amazon is offering authors 50% of the readers’ token purchase price. Recall that readers can purchase tokens at different price levels. The 50% rate is a touch more complicated than it sounds. That seems pretty fair, although it’s twenty-points shy of Amazon’s 70% royalty rate when you enroll your e-book in Kindle Select. How much compensation does the author receive? Amazon reports the split is 50-50 with the author. So, a 638-word episode costs six tokens, a 2,115 word episode costs 21 tokens, and so forth. Each episode is priced at one token per 100 words, rounded down. The number of tokens needed to unlock an episode depends on its word count. (The documentation makes is clear that the final prices when the system goes live may be different.) A sample image in Amazon’s help system has 200 tokens costing $2, 525 tokens for $5, 1100 tokens for $10, and so on. The tokens are priced depending on the number purchased at one time. If they want to continue reading, readers purchase Vella tokens to unlock additional episodes. (Amazon’s numbers are so specific, I assume this range is enforced by their software.) Readers can read the first three episodes of a story for free. Amazon doesn’t use the word “chapter”-I’ll discuss this below-but, for now, that’s a handy way to think of Vella’s episodes.Įach episode is 600 to 5,000 words. Vella is structured for publishing stories one “episode” at a time. The 10,000-foot tl dr is, Kindle Vella is a new pay-as-you-go platform for serialized fiction.
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