Amazon Kindle Vella - TOS & Pros and Cons Discussion

[crisyah]

So, since the other thread got locked, I'm making a masterpost of sorts with the TOS (as it stands) and links to a few articles explaining it and exploring the pros and cons of the platform.

Availability

• So far, Vella is only available to US authors.

Content

What you can publish on Vella:

• Any serialized fiction, even if it is available in other paying websites.
• Any serialized fiction that has been available on free websites, if you pull it down from them.

What you can't publish on Vella:

• Serialized fiction that is available for free, anywhere.
• Books that have been previously published, broken down into episodes, even if they are no longer available anywhere.
• Translations of books that have been previously published, broken down into episodes, even if they are no longer available anywhere.
• If your serial continues off a book you have previously published, you can include up to 5000 words of it to bridge the story.

If you want to take your serial and turn it into a book, you can, provided you follow these rules:

• If you wish to incorporate your Kindle Vella content into long-form content (e.g., a book) in any language, you may do so providing you follow these requirements:
• In order to publish a completed Kindle Vella story or group of episodes as a book or other long-form format, the last episode must have been available to readers in the Kindle Vella store for at least 30 days. You can see the latest publication date for episodes on your Story Manager page.
• A book or other long-form format containing republished Kindle Vella content must contain a minimum of 10 episodes. Individual episodes may not be published as standalone content outside of the Kindle Vella store.
• A Kindle Vella episode may only be republished in one book or other long-form format (i.e., you cannot publish Episode 10 in two different books).

Payment

• Readers pay "tokens" to unlock episodes and the author receives 50% of their value, minus fees, VAT, taxes, etc. (I'm not gonna pretend I can math, but someone else did and it comes to 7 cents per 1000 words.)
• Episode prices are set according to word count. Episode length is between 600 and 5000 words.
• Amazon reserves the right to price tokens at their discretion.
• Amazon also reserves the right to offer episodes for free, at their discretion.
• Payment is made 60 days after an episode has been locked. Authors will have access to an online report detailing episodes unlocked and royalties earned.

Unaddressed issues

For the sake of transparency, I'm including here the things I asked about and Amazon gave a non-answer to or didn't provide one at all (whether it's because they don't have one yet or not, I don't know).

• The 50% royalty rate they claim for themselves when they only get 30% from ebooks. Their answer was that authors can choose between a 30% and 70% royalty rate for ebooks; yet they didn't address why this isn't the case for Vella.
• Long form content can't be made available on Vella, so consumers won't buy duplicates of things they already own. I asked about incorporating the serial format into the product page, along with ebook, audiobook, physical copy format and have the app notify the buyer when they're about to unlock episodes of a book they've already bought, since that's all Amazon does to avoid this scenario with other formats, but was given no response. I understand that returns aren't viable with this format, since people could just read the episodes, then ask for a refund and, thus, read for free. But surely the first 3 chapters being free, the description, author name and title would be enough indication of whether a person already owns the work or not? Maybe it's because I live in a country that doesn't do returns and so I'm used to being much more careful with my purchases, so I don't buy duplicates. I don't know. Either way, no answer, and the onus falls on the author to have their work available in only one format so that consumers don't make a mistake, so far.

Pros & Cons

Here is an article that discusses all of this information and talks about the pros and cons.

Disclaimer:

Since the app hasn't been launched yet, things are still likely to change. I'll keep an eye out and update this thread as updates are made and / or more info comes out.

Sources:
Kindle Vella Content Guidelines
KDP & Kindle Vella TOS
Emails sent by Amazon 1 & 2

[ISNEKO]

So.... even if people are dying here and want to jump ship... they can't?

[crisyah]

Amazon says no, you'll need a new story to start over. For now, at least. They might change the terms.

[joannekwan]

Thank you for organizing this and doing the legwork!

[LostSpirit]

What you can publish on Vella:

Any serialized fiction, even if it is available in other paying websites.

What you can't publish on Vella:

Serialized fiction that is or has been available for free, anywhere.

Well. I can't use it because geography, but I'm a curious bug nonetheless. The two points above seem to contradict each other? My apologies, if I'm mistaken in my understanding. If that is the case, could you please help me understand this part better?

Thank you for taking the time to do this!

[crisyah]

No problem! They don't exactly contradict each other. For example, Radish is a website where you can put up webnovels behind a paywall, so if you have your webnovel there, you're good to go on Vella. Having your story up for free on Tapas would make it ineligible for Vella, however. (Not sure how Tapas Premium would work, since that depends on the kind of contract you have with them!)

[crisyah]

You're most welcome!

[LostSpirit]

Thanks. Pretty clear now.

[Iris-Grimoire]

Thanks for the information! Not gonna lie though, this sounds very not worth it. They've killed a novel program before with tons of authors trying to do the same thing of creating entirely new work for it then being left hanging, iirc.

[crisyah]

Things might still change and, hopefully, they will. KDU worked out for them, though, so there might be enough people trying this out that they won't have to change anything and will just keep exploiting authors by not paying for their rights, yet not letting them do anything with them, either.

[therosesword]

Regarding Kindle Vella...

Yes, you can put up your serialized webnovel fiction if it has been on a free site like Tapas IF... you make sure to take it off of the free site before you upload.

I have been in one phone conversation with Kindle and a several emails (as have other people) and we have found that the first information about not being able to do that was based on basic miscommunication.

As authors we call our work "books." Whether they are paper in our hands or digital. So when queries have been made the keywords that got the attention of the kindle people were not said. Once, in my communications I realized that they were talking about published books... books...not serialized webnovels. I stressed the fact that the story (I did not say book) that I had was a serialized webnovel that was uploaded episode by episode and then also provided a link to it here at Tapas... things changed almost immediately. I believe they did go in and check my link to Tapas as my story suddenly had some hits and hadn't had any for a couple days.

The same has happened to someone else and they, too, have received written confirmation.

I am trying this out, I do not have a great deal of other information and I am not a fount of wisdom about how to do this. As this is in beta mode and as there has already been massive miscommunication I am feeling my way along and as much as I would like to answer questions I don't feel that I should pass on assumptions or opinions until concrete information is available. I'm sorry but if I don't know something to be true I don't want to speculate in an open forum like this.

I know you probably have lots of questions, I still do, too.

Regarding royalties and other such issues... this is a personal issue as far as I'm concerned and how I feel about their pay is my business and no one else's. So I definitely have nothing to say about that. The same for others, if they like or dislike it... that is up to them.

[therosesword]

UPDATE:

If you're interested there are already several Kindle Vella pages on various social media platforms, some of them for faqs and support etc.

[crisyah]

Thanks, I'll update the first post with this info.

[xeu]

This looks interesting. I don't know if I'll join or not, because Amazon's terms and conditions sometimes scare me. My writing may be crap, but I want it to be entirely my crap.

[crisyah]

So, Amazon updated the Vella terms regarding including episodes in long-form formats:

• If you wish to incorporate your Kindle Vella content into long-form content (e.g., a book) in any language, you may do so providing you follow these requirements:
• In order to publish a completed Kindle Vella story or group of episodes as a book or other long-form format, the last episode must have been available to readers in the Kindle Vella store for at least 30 days. You can see the latest publication date for episodes on your Story Manager page.
• A book or other long-form format containing republished Kindle Vella content must contain a minimum of 10 episodes. Individual episodes may not be published as standalone content outside of the Kindle Vella store.
• A Kindle Vella episode may only be republished in one book or other long-form format (i.e., you cannot publish Episode 10 in two different books).

Now, that's more like it!

[DesiredUsernameTaken]

I've recently taken a huge interest in how easily miscommunication happens, and the delicacy of language. One word can change the tone and interpretation of something. so I just want to say I love this post of yours and how it emphasizes this.

[crisyah]

Further update: Vella will be opening for readers next week.

[thedude3445]

If someone is publishing with this, please let us all know how it goes!

[cherrystark]

That's the plan! @therosesword and I have series up and we're waiting for the official launch next week.

[therosesword]

@cherrystark and I are both scheduled. I have all three of my Bright Morn series up, vol. I and II for binge reading and III is scheduled daily until october. Then I put up the short Dead Souls Doing the Samba.. So, all toll I've got 287 chapters up.

A lot of the book writers are saying they're going to go for the minimum and then republish as a book AND their idea of a serial and try to get $$ out of both. Considering it will cost a person more to get it serial wise we figure once readers learn that some writers are doing this they'll stop buying and wait for the books at 2.99. sort of like waiting for a new movie to show up on netflix.

As a result I published on my social medial a complete list of what was available so readers would know there's more than the required 10 chapters and I wouldn't be flaking on them.

a lot of people are putting up 5 chapters to "see if it flies or tanks" and not even scheduling. I'm hoping people who like my genre will look at my available and upcoming stuff and the guys with 5 or 10 stories and no promise of anything more and choose me. And I've put up links to my serial's website to let people know I'm no fly-by-night and dead serious about my work.

www.brightmorn.com