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Big Changes Coming to Kindle Vella for Readers and Authors
How will this change your publishing strategy?
If you are an author on Kindle Vella, you received an email this week outlining the changes that Amazon has decided to make regarding how Kindle Vella works. This is being done, according to the email, based on feedback from readers who are looking for more value in reading Vella stories.
More Free Episodes
The first major change coming is that Amazon is increasing the amount of free episodes for readers from three to ten. It’s a big jump, and the theory is that the more episodes readers can access before paying, the better odds that they will be invested enough in the story to want to see what happens next.
For readers: This news is amazing. Ten free episodes will definitely get you invested in the story and if it’s well written, you will certainly continue with the series. It can also give you more value on non-traditional Vella stories, such as short story collections. Now you will be able to read up to ten free stories without having to spend any tokens.
For writers: Providing more of your work for free means there will have to be more work created before you ever start uploading a story. While it is understandable that readers want to feel connected before they spend money on something, now writers will have to create longer projects to match what they were earning before with just three episodes available for free.
Amazon says that it will continue to consider how many free episodes are read to calculate Vella bonuses.
No More Free Tokens for New Readers
This one is probably not as important to writers as it is to those who were thinking about becoming a reader on Vella. Initially, Amazon gave every reader 200 free tokens which could get you pretty far into a story before you had to buy a new token pack. Now that will stop.
For readers: New readers will be less likely to pick up a Vella story and read it, unless they are swayed by the ten free episodes as being an equal or greater value.
For writers: It won’t necessarily impact the existing system, but it could lead to having less people reading Vella stories…
