Kindle Vella — First Impressions

Kindle’s new service, Vella, aims to capture the mobile market with serialised stories, but is it sustainable, and does Amazon actually care?

A few days ago, Amazon debuted its new service, Kindle Vella. A program by which users post 500–6000 word stories in “episodes.” It’s heralded in the community as a way to capitalise on serialised stories and short fiction in real time, rather than as complete releases. On the face of things, it appears a multi-faceted attempt to break into the mobile market and into Apple’s share of self-publishing (the app is currently only available on IOS). Building upon a market made popular by Wattpad and Radish, this new serialised service is being flouted as a great way to appeal to younger readers.

Indeed, one Facebook user stated the service could “capture the younger audience who tends to prefer micropayment for content.” This isn’t entirely untrue. The gaming industry has been using microtransactions for some time. Gamifying transactions has changed the economy of the video game industry. But it has also proved controversial, even damaging for a number of companies that have sought to exploit the system.

Excited as authors may be, young people in 2021 represent a highly-informed marketplace. Indeed, with a…