Strange, Weird, HUH? with Kindle Vella Writers

cherrystark 2021-07-14 14:52:10 UTC #142

A few people have been great with the launch. There is still so much complaining. They act like it's their "job" to find faults with the program. Within the first couple of hours after the launch, people were demanding to see their stats.

This morning, one lady posted how disappointed she didn't get any money yesterday. I was disappointed too, but I count myself lucky for the likes I did get

Zugaikotsu 2021-07-14 16:47:50 UTC #143

LMAAAOOOO the whole thing barely started...

therosesword 2021-07-14 16:51:41 UTC #144

I missed that one! That's too funny.

cherrystark 2021-07-15 19:15:05 UTC #145

They announced the Vella return policy after the soft launch and OMG people are still having a cow. They are complaining like this return policy is going to cost them thousands of dollars in potential income instea of a couple of pennies. Yes, pennies add up but if you have a solid serial, I can see the need for returns as miniual.

Unfortunately, there are still people treating Vella as a place to pedal their uneditted first drafts to get money and hopefully feedback before they sell it as a polished "book". Oh dear.

therosesword 2021-07-15 21:44:10 UTC #146

We're also finding a certain group of writers who, now that they have a few chapters (1 to 5) up on vella are suddenly expert writers with tons of advice how you should do something specifically if it is the way they do it.

cherrystark 2021-07-17 00:04:49 UTC #147

The biggest load of crap just happened! With Vella's launch, a lot of groups are posting no "self-promo" or limited self-promo in favor of self-promo groups. One of the group admins takes the cake for crazy. She was pretty hands off in her group until she passed the "no self-promo rule"

To me, it's simple. "Don't post your links". Well! She decided to boot everybody in the group and will only let them post if they agree to a new set of rules saying they won't self-promo. To her, self-promo is not only posting your links, it's mentioning your title, showing story art, and more. If you want to crow about your success, you have to say stuff like "my reverse harem alien romance did well" or crop out any identifying features in your screenshot or else it will be self promo.

The group is supposed to be all about support but if you complain or ask for help, it's against the terms of service. This all happened within the last hour or two without warning.

Needless to say, @therosesword and I left.

therosesword 2021-07-17 00:11:23 UTC #148

yup, admin didn't see it but this was us leaving

rajillustration 2021-07-17 02:35:47 UTC #149

LOLMAO these groups sound unbelievable. No self promo means...never mention the name of your book? wow.

cherrystark 2021-07-17 02:39:06 UTC #150

The icing on the cake was after we left, the admin messaged us both saying "I didn't mean to ban you!"

therosesword 2021-07-17 03:22:06 UTC #151

Yup. I was showing of the art you did and that went bye-bye. And I put up a notice when the stuff first started showing up on vella to show people what to look for and, of course, I showed my stuff because, who else's would I show, I didn't know who had what up but, bam, that went. Like Cherry said, can't even mention the title of your work:

We were gone gone gone within seconds.

rajillustration 2021-07-17 03:24:45 UTC #152

wow, right on the time of the release too, I can't imagine anyone came back!

therosesword 2021-07-17 03:26:54 UTC #153

I was wondering over the past three days, and so was Cherry, why were we getting 5 to 10 requests to join our group a day. The average was around 7. Every single day. And most of them were from the "support" group. Now we know why.

cherrystark 2021-07-17 03:31:48 UTC #154

We stayed for as long as we did because we "liked" her and wanted to support her, but as an admin, she didn't DO anything. Aside from the regular Vella crazy, her group had been okay to post in and get feedback (ie support) Now, all of that is gone because she wants to create a "positive" place. You can still post about Vella but according to her video, you also have to post the resolution to the issue so other people can "learn" from it.

cherrystark 2021-07-18 18:42:40 UTC #155

The crazy admin did it again. One girl posted a screenshot of her stats. "Bragging" that between her 5 serials, she's made 2 bucks. It's an accomplishment since Amazon is giving away the first 200 tokens for free. The fact that people are sharing their stats so openly makes me uncomfortable since it only serves to make the "less successful" readers feel bad about themselves.

So... You would think that the crazy admin lady would throw the hammer down at this, but NOPE. It's totally okay as long we don't show our titles, links, or story images. *So much for creating a "positive" environment I guess.

therosesword 2021-07-18 19:12:54 UTC #156

the funniest thing is about that 'brag" is that there are three free episodes and each serial. The stats show your total amount of clicks (or possible reads) and then they have a separate stat for "unlocked episodes" which means they have to pay. I'm just grabbing numbers here, not actual ones but for her 485 clicks she''s showing 175 unlocked episodes. which means the other 300+ are the free episodes and nothing beyond that. Which means, to me, that there's a whole bunch of people not reading any further than the three freebees.

also she's really excited about followers (i.e. subscribers) which we all know are great stats but.... will the subscriber actually read everything or are they just clicking and thinking about it for later to forget.

We've got a pretty good "feet on the ground, heads on straight" group in our fb page and most of them are not impressed. If anything they think the "brag" is a real downer for people with lesser numbers.

We just try to keep it real. Until they hit the big numbers a lot of people here hit, bring on the salt.

cherrystark 2021-07-19 16:33:56 UTC #157

Another story from the Vella Verse.

Now, to preface, I totally understand being upset to find out that a reader returned every episode of my series. I want Amazon to fix the return policy.

As I started reading more into this writer's situation - questions started to arise. The writer's serial is a "trunk novel" - which means it was one that she had already written but tweaked it for Vella instead of traditionally publishing it.

I had to question how much she'd been telling her readers. In my experience, people don't jump to returns without a good reason. I have no way of confirming this but looking at the other comments on this group - their readers aren't used to the format. I might be tempted to return a chapter for questionable material but if I enjoyed rest, I wouldn't return everything.

The theory I am running with is that the readers thought the story was too expensive on Vella and returned the whole thing and/or the writer dropped that they would be planning on releasing the story later on as a book and figured to get it for a cheaper price.

therosesword 2021-07-19 18:43:21 UTC #158

That's pretty much what I'm thinking. Among the writers it's well known that after x amount of chapters/time they can turn the piece into a "book" on kindle (or hard copy, I guess) and it will sell for about 2.99 which is cheaper than the serialization depending on how many actual chapters.

therosesword 2021-07-19 22:06:14 UTC #159

oh man.... they're getting weirder and weirder over on vella. I. CAN'T. EVEN.

Zugaikotsu 2021-07-19 23:56:26 UTC #160

I hope Amazon is diligently promoting Vella for what it is, so readers won't feel "scammed" thinking they're buying a butchered regular book. I had to 'enlight' many bitter readers in forums and goodreads complaining of long serials, comparing them to your average 2,99$ book at amazon, explaining them this 'infinite book' they were shitting on for being too long and expensive was the equal of 20 of those 2,99 they were refering to.

therosesword 2021-07-20 00:01:58 UTC #161

omg... more insanity? where have you found this. I just poured a glass of wine and need something fun to read. I am laughing so hard right now.