Oct 30, 2024 13:45:00

Amazon to shut down serialized novel platform Kindle Vella in February 2025

Kindle Vella is a feature of Kindle Direct Publishing, which allows you to publish books on Amazon. Instead of publishing a single book, you can publish episodes of 600 to 5,000 characters in a serialized format. Kindle Vella was a service limited to Amazon.com in the United States, but it has been announced that it will be gradually shut down by February 2025.

Kindle Vella
https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella/a/faq

Amazon is shutting down its Kindle Vella serialized story platform in February 2025
https://www.engadget.com/apps/amazon-is-shutting-down-its-kindle-vella-serialized-story-platform-in-february-2025-120030125.html

On October 29, 2024, Amazon updated the FAQ to state, 'We have made the difficult decision to gradually phase out Kindle Vella.' According to the announcement, Kindle Vella was launched in 2021 as one of our new ideas to provide a unique and enjoyable experience for both readers and authors, but it was not as popular as we had hoped, so we decided to discontinue sales.

On Kindle Vella, you access title details like the image below.

The episode selection screen looks like this. The first few chapters of the work can be read for free, and additional episodes can be unlocked by consuming special 'tokens.' Tokens can be purchased or distributed for free.

The token sale will run until December 4, 2024, and authors can continue to publish new episodes until that date. Readers can unlock episodes with tokens until Kindle Vella ends, and unlocked stories and episodes will continue to be available in the Kindle app after Kindle Vella ends. In addition, if you have tokens remaining in your account when Kindle Vella ends, an Amazon gift card equal to the value of the tokens will be credited to your account.

Technology blog Engadget points out that 'since Kindle Vella became available, the response has always been lukewarm.' The advantage of Kindle Vella is that authors can publish their unfinished stories bit by bit and earn royalties. However, Engadget says that very few people are actually using it because it's like 'paying for a book in installments' from the reader's perspective.