What you should know about Kindle Vella

Kindle Vella allows readers to read serialized fiction works that are specifically written for the platform. You should note that serialization refers to breaking your story into parts, and releasing them in intervals just like you see in TV shows. 

Today, writers have various ways they can use to publish their stories, and Kindle Vella is one of the exciting platforms for most authors. Judging by the way readers are using this platform, it’s clear that there is a huge appetite for this type of format of reading. This article discusses what you should know about Kindle Vella. 

Kindle Vella explained

As explained earlier, Kindle Vella refers to a serialized reading platform that helps writers to release their stories in short episodes. Amazon launched this platform in 2021, and many writers can use it to publish their stories. Each episode on this platform needs to be between 500 and 6,000 words. Remember that the first three short stories are accessible for free for all readers, meaning that they need to unlock future episodes using paid tokens.

Writers can get 50 percent of the money that readers on Kindle Vella pay to unlock these episodes. In this way, new writers can attract new readers by simply writing good first three chapters. When your readers invest in the story, they can be ready to pay for tokens so that they can read what happens next. This usually generates income for both the writers of the stories and Amazon.

The good news is that Kindle Vella accepts all genres of stories that you can publish in short episodes. Since episodic platforms are quite popular with younger readers, it makes sense to write genres that can attract a younger audience. This includes writing stories on sci-fi, fantasy, young adult, mystery, romance, and thriller. However, you don’t need to focus on these genres to post on this platform. 

The only strict requirement is that your story needs to be original, meaning it should not have been published before. In other words, you cannot post episodes that were already published in any language. 

Kindle Vella sometimes allows you to post the same stories later, but readers cannot access them freely. Therefore, you can cross-post your stories on another platform or even turn them into a novel after you have already published them on Kindle Vella.

There are several ways your readers can find your stories on Kindle Vella. They can decide to use the leader board which has stories with a lot of Faves. Keep in mind that this leaderboard can allow your readers to view some of the most popular stories every month.

There are also the stories you may like, which Amazon utilizes to recommend similar stories that the readers may have already read. Therefore, readers can choose to search for stories in different ways. They can search by genre like by looking at all the top sci-fi stories. 

Publishing on Kindle Vella

It’s quite simple to publish your story on Kindle Vella. Firstly, you need to create a new story. You can then go to the Kindle Vella’s library and press on start a story. Once you click the start a story option, you should enter the author’s name, title, and story description. Take note that you can only enter a story title that has up to 100 characters.

When it comes to the name of the author, you can give your first name and last name. Alternatively, you can choose to use your pen name. Also, you can add other names, but they should be up to three, especially if you intend to write as a team of authors. The story description needs to be short with at least 500 characters. You need to ensure that you choose a description that can attract potential readers and convince them to begin reading. 

Another stage is to upload a square picture that has 1600×1600 pixels, which your potential readers can see while discovering your story. This picture should not have the title or even your name because your potential readers can see this type of information next to the image. 

Once you upload the image, you can choose two categories for your stories like mystery and romance. You should note that these categories can assist Amazon to narrow down your target readers. This means that they can identify the audience that like the topic or genre you are writing.

Another crucial step to publishing on Kindle Vella is to add tags. You can choose to add at least 7 tags. It’s worth mentioning that tags are quite similar to hashtags on Instagram or keywords on KDP. These tags can assist to characterize your stories so that potential readers may discover what they desire to read.

Now that you have created your story, you need to publish your first episode. There are many stories available on Kindle Vella competing for attention. Therefore, if you intend to attract many readers to your stories, then you must publish work that is readable and polished. You can decide to use an editor to make sure that the stories are ready for your readers. A reputable editor can ensure that they improve flow, catch errors, avoid clichés, and many more.

The last step is to make sure that you have a consistent release schedule. The truth is that your stories can succeed on Kindle Vella if you maintain consistency. If your readers must wait for a couple of weeks or even months before you release your next episode, there are chances that they can feel frustrated over the long wait time. Worse still, some of your readers can sometimes forget about your story. This is the reason why most of the successful writers on a serialized reading platform tend to regularly update their stories. For instance, you can choose to post a new story every Monday, so your readers can know when to come back for your new episodes. On the other hand, if your readers don’t know the release schedule for your stories, they can opt for another writer of the same genre to read the episodes.