Kindle Vella Update

cherrystark 2021-05-15 23:55:58 UTC #21

Yes. And a lot of those authors are trying to make serials.

therosesword 2021-05-15 23:56:14 UTC #22

I'm thinking we've hit on the secret here. lol

thetalentedmrwulf 2021-05-15 23:57:17 UTC #23

It's twofold! Google crawls Amazon inordinately often so trending topics put their books higher in Google search AND they can ride off of Chuck Tingle's coattails by looking like his books to people that don't know any better. They'll often have little Facebook or Twitter release parties and push reviews hard because once you hit a certain review threshold your book leaps higher in the algo.

rajillustration 2021-05-15 23:59:02 UTC #24

All I know is there are SO MANY hastily thrown together romance novel covers around twitter that are books where the lead is literally dating Coronavirus (who is usually a stock image hot dude they've colored green that I suspect they just stole from google image search.) This explains a lot.

therosesword 2021-05-15 23:59:22 UTC #25

and all the karens are running around going "look at me. look how many books i've written. aren't I just the greatest" preen preen preen.

omg.... I'm dying.l.. every time @cherrystark and i talked about the art it was basically subtextedc... what the h*** is this s***

cherrystark 2021-05-16 00:00:42 UTC #26

They are dating the virus??? What that??? That's insane. I've seen plenty of the weird "alpha, billionaire, bad boy, enter trope here," books but never dating the coronavirus. That's insane.

rajillustration 2021-05-16 00:02:57 UTC #27

thetalentedmrwulf 2021-05-16 00:03:58 UTC #28

That's EXACTLY it. Monster sex, steampunk, billoinaire, werewolves (particularly with Alpha in the title,) and trending topics are their big keywords. Like, comparable to isekai or "in the dungeon" here. People kept asking Chuck Tingle if the COVID dating books were his, and he was super upset because while he's delightfully weird and meta, he has no interest in things that are srs bzns and are lethal. It's why there's hashtag soup on their Twitter posts to snag anybody vaguely looking in their direction BUT MOSTLY to ping automated web bots consolidating lists and retweeting them.

therosesword 2021-05-16 00:04:53 UTC #29

@rajillustration

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha

there's this dude that went on tapas and said all he saw was "cartoon." I endeavored for a smackdown at one point but don't know if he saw it.

Those covers are gawdawful.

rajillustration 2021-05-16 00:05:06 UTC #30

Yeah because I don't think anyone ever read this one

Except maybe ironically? Like they have to sell these things based on title alone because bookwise: there is no book here. It's just retweets and reactions on youtube.

thetalentedmrwulf 2021-05-16 00:07:46 UTC #31

There's a Worthikids Youtube video from their Big Top Burger series about this weird clown based food truck that has a rival zombie themed food truck that sells burnt garbage because people buy them for Twitter and IG reactions.

There's literally an entire subgenre of Amazon fiction that is funded by two demographics; people hate-reading it on Youtube/Twitch and people mistaking it for an entirely different quirky person.

rajillustration 2021-05-16 00:08:23 UTC #32

I freakin love Worthikids--Zomburger Episode in particular is like chefs kiss

therosesword 2021-05-16 00:08:59 UTC #33

f*** *I just wet myself.... hahahahahahahah

we've got one guy who tried to hold a seminar on how to make money with vella and it's not even open and he says.. proudly... I've written 83 books... now we know. We will never be able to take 95% of these people seriously.

I'm dying I'm dying.... hahahahahaha

cherrystark 2021-05-16 00:11:04 UTC #34

@rajillustration These covers are killing me.

But now it makes sense why they all flaunt their "USA Today Bestseller" badges (which I was kidding, but I'm not)

Edit: The guy @therosesword mentioned was questioning which POV online sci-fi/fantasy readers preferred. I told him it didn't matter as long as it was written well (big takeaway from threads here), he jumps on me that he's "written 83 books" so he knows what he's doing. I had to step away laughing.

therosesword 2021-05-16 00:12:52 UTC #35

oh those, hahahaha

the skeletons are dancing out of the closet... omg...

rajillustration 2021-05-16 00:13:03 UTC #36

They probably did sell well if they went viral--but then after everyone's done doing a hate-review on youtube about the book, who's gonna buy it years from now? They literally can't do a serial, because one month later and their hype has flown it's course. There's no lasting relevancy.

therosesword 2021-05-16 00:17:14 UTC #37

this all explains so much about what we've been encountering and being so flabbergasted at.... soo sooo much

cherrystark 2021-05-16 00:19:20 UTC #38

I learned that the minimum sales requirement for the title is 6000 books, so if they are pulling together tropes for a novel it makes sense.

I agree. And that's part of the reason I'm so confused about some of these people I see hosting seminars. (One lady's class was $300 a pop) I applaud their game at earning money but I checked out the reviews for one author's work and a good 80% of the reviews for their serial was "this could have been one book".

thetalentedmrwulf 2021-05-16 00:20:00 UTC #39

So, hilariously, here's one of the many MANY guides on how to game yourself into being on the USA Today Bestseller list including what time of year to do it so you have the highest chance because of actual publishing house release schedules.

https://nicholaserik.com/usa-today-bestseller-mini-guide/

They are literally doing this for the couple percent advertising pop this gets them in potential readers. These are the RPG min/maxers of writing. Many can write, but the successful among them are way more talented at manipulating a single algorithm than in anything vaguely resembling story-building.

therosesword 2021-05-16 00:20:30 UTC #40

There's a woman that was doing classes or something I don't know for sure, on how to make it on Vella and it only been announced a couple days earlier and she was charging $300 for the course.

@cherrystark check out her books and the 1 star ones said the wished they could go lower.