Strange, Weird, HUH? with Kindle Vella Writers

[therosesword]

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]

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]

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]

One girl posted a screenshot of her stats. "Bragging" that between her 5 serials, she's made 2 bucks.

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]

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]

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.

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]

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

[Zugaikotsu]

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]

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.

[cherrystark]

And it's not like they'll happily spend the same amount of money on the virtual farms or popping imaginary bubbles.

One lady seemed a tab offended with the 200 free tokens because she felt (or so I interpretted it) that since she was bring a large readership to Vella, it wasn't fair that she'd have to give away more "free" content. Like all her readers would be spending all their free tokens on her.

[therosesword]

don't forget the woman who was upset she'd only made 13 cents. the platform has been up 1 day shy of a week with little advertising and they're all sure they were going to be rolling in cash the first day. And evrytime anyone with serial experience tried to tell them what will happen they shut you down, really toxic like. dang, fun watching karma

[therosesword]

At least you calm them down, we seem to tick them off more! hahahahaha

[cherrystark]

Like I said, the writers act like they are loosing out on thousands of dollars a day.

[therosesword]

lot of righteous indignation going on.

constantly trying to tell them to chill, breathe, it's the long haul, then they tell us we're no help.

[cherrystark]

Thinking about it - at least the refund policy can help guarantee readers a good, quality story. To me, it's one thing to read an unedited story on a free site. The author is most likely looking for feedback and is constantly trying to improve. But it's another thing to pay money to read an unedited story. Some people have tossed around the idea that they'd throw out a crappy first draft on Vella and while earning $$, they can take the suggestions in the reviews and polish up the story for the big KU release. Since readers can now ask for refunds of their tokens, I can see that plan dying fast.

[therosesword]

What's really fun is watching them trying to game the system and failing.

[SleepingPoppy]

It's really entertaining to read you guys discuss all the shenanigans going on with the Vella writers. Thank you for continuing to share. =)

[cherrystark]

Happy to share. We joke between ourselves that coming to the Tapas forums is where we get our adult conversations.

[therosesword]

the humor and snarkiness is about the only way we can deal with it sometimes, most of the time it's just really kind of sad. We've tried from the get go to inform them what works, what doesn't work (that we've seen, we're no super experts but we're pretty observant.) And then like today, we get some woman who has never contributed to a thread except to complain tell us that the only thing we ever to is tell them to do this or not do that. by then I'd had it and told her she could leave if she wanted to.

to tell you truthfully, we come back here for real conversations about writing. a lot of these people are the KU writers where they have to churn out the books and they're running around "i've written 60 books" etc. and they're so busy about talking about newsletters and emails, and making swag offerings to entice readers to read their stuff. We NEVER NEVER see an actual conversation about writing. Really. Not ONE single one, unless it's started by a someone doing serials.

They're really kinda pitiful.

[cherrystark]

And then like today, we get some woman who has never contributed to a thread except to complain tell us that the only thing we ever to is tell them to do this or not do that. by then I'd had it and told her she could leave if she wanted to.

The lady who said we weren't helpful made me feel like crying from sheer frustration. The post was a general "Don't Stress. Things will All Work Out". I know a lot of writers are feeling overwhelmed by the confusion in the other groups and came to us for sanity.

One woman dismissed my post by saying "we weren't stressing. we were having a discussion". And then the mean lady freaked out on us.