For anyone who is curious about Kindle Vella, here is some information that may lead you to a fun discovery. Vella is a new way of story telling and reading on Kindle, where the authors write stories in a serial format. We upload our episodes (the same thing as chapters in a print or ebook) to Vella to publish. Some authors have uploaded their entire books, others plan to release their episodes on a schedule.
You have to have an Amazon account in order to read Vella stories, which are priced by the word count. The good news is, EVERY story in Vella has the first three episodes for FREE. Then, on top of that, all new Vella readers get 200 free tokens! Then you get to pick where to spend your tokens. Luckily for some of you who like ghost stories, my story Our Family’s Spirits first three episodes is a complete story, so nobody gets left hanging! Then if you like it, you can purchase more episodes with your free tokens. A token will buy 100 words, so if there is an episode with 620 words, you will use 6 tokens to unlock that episode.
My other story Her Alien Children is a story about a young girl who believes that she and her family may have been alien abductees, based on strange recurring nightmares and losses of memory. What she has no way of knowing is that the future is closer than she thinks. The same free token plan applies to this story, as well as all the others. I have added another episode to both of my stories recently!
Once you get to the end of episodes, you can give a Thumbs Up to any that you liked. Also, in the story main page, where you select your episode to read, once you have purchased your first bought tokens, you will get a Fave option to make any story your Fave. Unlocking episodes with purchased tokens gives you a new Fave button to use every week. The other way you can interact with the author is to give a review and/or a rating on the whole story. Five stars means you loved it, 1 star means not so much. All of these reader interactions help the authors get recognition and that makes their stories available to more people in Vella land!
The other thing to remember is, that Vella is formatted for the mobile lifestyle. I have been able to read the Vella stories of others on my Android phone, as well as my laptop by logging into Amazon. It isn’t available on the Kindle at this time, at least it wasn’t the last time I checked. So, my friends, that is Kindle Vella in a nutshell. Or the best way I can think to present it. So, take a chance, it’s free! Go check out the Vella stories, you’ve got nothing to lose when it’s on their dime!
Susan B. Lovejoy 