Dear Indie | Kindle Vella Update

Hi Indies,

This update about Kindle Vella is long overdue. Sorry about that. If you missed my initial post about Kindle Vella, you can find it right here.

The platform was introduced by Amazon a couple of years ago as another route writers can take to earn an income for their craft without the need for a completed book.

Instead, you publish serials and can post new chapters or parts as often as you’d like. Of course, the more often you post, the better your chances of gaining followers and, thus, a profit.

Now that I’ve been on Vella for a little over a year, I figured I should share my experience with those who might still be on the fence.

Pros

The #1 pro about publishing through Kindle Vella is the additional income. Even if you don’t have any readers buying your chapters, you still get a certain amount of bonus $$$ from Amazon for uploading new content.

It’s an incentive to keep writers active on the platform, which is a brilliant idea because who doesn’t like earning money for doing something they love?

Vella allows you to monetize your time and creativity as you write rather than having to wait until the book is finished, edited, covered, and on the market.

As authors, we spend hundreds to thousands of dollars just to publish one book and then pray with all our might we see a return on it… eventually.

With Kindle Vella, you could start earning that profit right away without spending all that money upfront first.

Cons

The biggest con is that it’s difficult to attract readers to your series. Just as with eBooks, the market is oversaturated with choices.

Judging by reader comments and complaints, it appears the only way to gain attention is to be regularly active by uploading new content frequently.

Readers also won’t invest in a serial that doesn’t have a lot of chapters already available. They don’t want to wait for the next one to come out to continue the story.

Personal Problems

Even though I’ve had my serial on Vella all this time, I have yet to attract any readers. That’s mostly my fault, though. I thought posting on Vella would light a fire under my ass and force me to be productive to keep readers happy.

The problem is that it’s too ‘Out of sight-Out of mind’ for me. I forget I have a story on there that I should be working on. And since I don’t have any readers commenting and asking for updates, it’s far too easy to put it off for other projects.

That’s me, though. And not everyone has the same focusing issues I do. I could help remedy the problem by creating a shortcut for Vella on my desktop to remind me that it’s there and in need of my attention.

In Conclusion

I’m not ready to give up on Vella yet. I think the opportunity it presents is a good one. My unfavorable results are due to my lack of effort. The platform still provides an excellent resource for extra income. You just have to be willing to put in the time and work, even if you don’t see any results for a while.

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❤ Have you tried Kindle Vella yet? What were your results?

❤ Would you ever try writing a serial?