Why the Hell Am I on Kindle Vella?

I resisted using ‘hella’ so hard in that title.

So I have two stories on Kindle Vella at the moment. Wait, first: do you know what Kindle Vella is? It’s Amazon’s newest reading platform, featuring episodic fiction released in small chunks from 600 to 5000 words. It’s usually mentioned as a competitor to sites like Wattpad and Radish. I feel this is slightly inaccurate. Here’s a summary of Amazon’s description of Kindle Vella:

• Kindle Vella brings you stories released one short episode at a time, available in the Kindle for iOS app and on Amazon.com.
• Readers can follow the stories they like to keep up with the latest from their favorite characters.
• If the reader likes the story, they can give it a Thumbs Up to let the author and other readers know.
• Rather than posting comments on every episode, readers can leave an overall review on stories to let the author and other readers know what they thought about the story.
• The first three episodes of every story are always free. To continue reading after that, readers purchase Tokens and redeem them to unlock episodes. Vella Tokens may only be used to unlock Kindle Vella story episodes in the Kindle for iOS app and on Amazon.com.
• When readers pay to unlock episodes, they will receive one Fave a week that they can award to the story they’re enjoying most that week.
• Amazon/Kindle Vella will feature Top Faved stories so other readers can find them too.

Does all that make sense? No per episode reviews, just upvotes. Less active engagement, but significantly fewer trolls. A slight barrier to entry, but a better experience in the end.

So, about my stories.

They are both alternate modern Earth paranormal fantasy stories. The first one is my ‘main,’ Spenser Academy Book 1: The Book of the Star which follows a young man in a world where magic is not only real, but rules the world. He is part of that world, theoretically part of the ruling elite, even. It’s just that he did some things that made him persona non grata, and he has some work to do to pay for his sins. He also married a Vampire, who is definitely not in the Covenant. So in this world, they are barely witches.

There is a Book 2. My Scrivener file for this story is gigantic (and backed up in multiple places).

The second one, Armed and Dangerous: Phoenix Investigations, is about an insurance investigator (let’s just call him a detective) who is married to a younger man, in a world close enough to our own where that makes people look at him a little funny. Doesn’t help that he moved to a state (Arizona) where there are more megachurches than shopping malls, and he is investigating a bank robbery that might lead to tarnished reputations for pillars of the community. Oops. Life is hard for a gay detective.

This story has a sequel as well. Possibly two, but overall it is shorter than the beast that is Spenser.

The Price of ‘Free’

Some writers and readers are appalled by the idea of paying up front, and advocate for using one of the other ‘free’ sites and collect donations through a third-party site like ko-fi instead of putting your work behind a paywall. I strongly disagree with this. I like the clear and reasonably liberal content guidelines that Amazon provides. Free sites come down hard on anything that is even vaguely questionable, especially when it comes to certain themes or active same-sex relationships that have more than just a kiss and fade to black.

I suppose I could just leave that stuff out, but why shouldn’t I write the best story I can? Why would I give my readers less than my absolute best? My goal in writing my stories is to astonish and delight my readers. My characters are complex creations in unusual situations. There are plenty of stories with grim chainsmoking detectives who have the hots for their slightly attractive female secretary or the misunderstood/wicked femme fatale. So I wrote one with a happily married chainsmoking gay detective with a very macabre sense of humor (and a dark secret). His sexual orientation is part of his background and the story. It’s not the focus, but the story would become yet another bland detective story without it.

My other Vella story, Spenser, features a very large cast. If they were all straight, it would be really bland and unrealistic. For some of the characters, their sexual orientation is just a side note. For some, it’s a major issue. And for others, it is a done deal that nothing can change. Both stories also feature religious institutions in not exactly flattering lights, violence in various shapes and forms, and an above average amount of swearing. I didn’t write them to be deliberately shocking, I wrote them because that’s how the story should unfold. How can you have a millennia-long grip on human history without the Church? How can you write about a gunfight without having anyone be injured? I found an answer that satisfies me and let me write the best story I could, but that answer means that my writing can’t be ‘free.’