Amazon is Shutting Down Its Kindle Vella Serialized Story Platform in February 2025 (engadget.com) 14
Amazon, in what it described as a "difficult decision," is winding down Kindle Vella and shutting it down completely in February 2025. From a report: When the company launched the serialized story platform in 2021, it said Vella was a way for readers to discover new fictional stories and a new way for authors to earn from the Kindle Direct Publishing service. But it hasn't caught on as it had hoped, Amazon explains on its website, and it has decided to throw in the towel three years after Vella's debut.
Authors can only publish stories on Vella until December 4, which is also the last day readers can purchase tokens. While readers will no longer be able to purchase tokens after that, they can continue using those tokens to unlock episodes until the program closes in February. The good news for those who've been following specific authors or stories on Vella is that they won't lose their access to whatever episodes they've already unlocked even after the platform shuts down.
Authors can only publish stories on Vella until December 4, which is also the last day readers can purchase tokens. While readers will no longer be able to purchase tokens after that, they can continue using those tokens to unlock episodes until the program closes in February. The good news for those who've been following specific authors or stories on Vella is that they won't lose their access to whatever episodes they've already unlocked even after the platform shuts down.
Probably doesn't help (Score:3, Insightful)
that I'd never heard of it before today.
Re: (Score:2)
I'm an avid Kindle user; plus I get all sorts of Kindle-related emails from Amazon... and I'm pretty sure this is the very first time I've ever heard of "Vella".
Re: (Score:2)
Re: (Score:2)
Joining the club here. I've never heard of Vella before today.
In other words:
<aol>ME TOO!</aol>
Re: (Score:2)
Even I, as a writer publishing on Amazon, haven't heard of it before.
Not that I'd participate because it only benefits Amazon in the end just like Kindle Unlimited.
No one cared (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife self-publishes on Amazon, so I just asked her if she'd heard of this.
She had, but was never interested, because there was nothing on it but erotica--not her genre.
What the what what now? (Score:2)
Kindle needs better content (Score:5, Interesting)
Can we just get better content on the Kindle? Sure there are thousands, or millions of great books. But so much romance / fantasy crap. I hate getting Amazon First Read emails because even things like "history" titles turn out to be about female vampires chasing George Washington in 1776. Or crappy romance novels. I've started deleting these emails because it's all crap.
Re: (Score:3)
The monthly "First Reads" used to be a nice perk... but yeah, they're mostly either "romance" or "a journey of self-discovery" nowadays. My takeaway is that most of the paying Kindle customers must be women.
Term is "internal struggle" (Score:3)
Books having an "internal struggle" can be more questionable in quality level than books with an "external struggle".
I had heard the name Vella before (Score:2)
but I didn't have a clue what it was.
Maybe those authors could just publish on Kindle Unlimited.
I have been a Kindle reader for quite a long time, mostly on my phone, but also on Fire tablets.
(Genres SF and military history)
If only there had been some existing option (Score:1)
It's really a shame that there weren't some existing media in which short stories were popular --- they could have been made available on the Kindle in some periodic fashion, grouped by topic/subject, and to which folks could have subscribed....
Too complicated and too little reach (Score:2)
I heard about it when it launched, but it doesn't seem to have made much of an impact. I think it was meant to compete with dedicated websites for serialised fiction, like WebNovel and Dreame, and maybe even Wattpad. But you had to pay for episodes with some Amazon-only currency that you couldn't use for anything else, not even other stuff that Amazon sells.
Amazon didn't make it very appealing to writers, either. I write fiction (as a hobby-that-sometimes-pays-for-dinner-or-beers). Amazon might've relaxed t