Kindle Vella, the Amazon serialized stories program will be winding up soon. I’ve received a couple of emails from Amazon announcing the imminent closure of the program and detailing what authors and readers can do and expect before the program finally winds up in February 2025.
The Vella platform is an additional platform from KDP built specifically for serialized stories. Vella authors can write and publish their stories one episode at a time.
According to the email starting from December 4, authors will no longer be able to publish episodes to their ongoing stories, and readers will also not be able to buy new tokens to unlock stories. Readers can continue to use the remaining tokens to read published stories and episodes until the program closes in February 2025.
I’m sure the announcement won’t come as a surprise to most Kindle Vella authors because right from the onset, Vella never showed strong signs of surviving on its own without the bonus packages that Amazon was rolling out every month.
I learned about Vella here on Medium and signed up almost two years after it started. There was this particular writer, who consistently wrote pieces about Vella. In each of the posts, the writer will discuss bonus earnings, publishing schedules, and how challenging it was to get readers who will unlock and read locked episodes.
I signed up because I love writing fiction and was hoping to share my stories there and maybe make some money. I was elated to be part of the program because I had drafts and other ideas that I needed to work on and publish on the right platform and I believed Vella was the right place to publish my stories one episode at a time.
What I didn’t take into consideration was the challenge of getting people to unlock and read my stories on Vella. Undeterred by the challenges to get eyes on my work, I continued to publish stories I’ve always wanted to share with the world. I wrote and published at least one episode each day. I published at least three episodes during weekends when I had more time to write.
I finished one short story which was about fifteen episodes. Thereafter I started working on the other three series. I was halfway on each of the three before I decided that I’d stop writing on Vella. I unpublished the only one I was able to finish and wrote a bit more on the other three series before leaving the program to focus on other writing projects.
It was a pleasant experience being a Vella contributor while it lasted even though I didn’t earn a lot from the program. The program spurred me to create time to work on stories that I abandoned a long time ago. It also motivated me to start new ones. And the more I wrote and published the more I generated creative ideas.
I didn’t stop writing and publishing on Vella because I lacked ideas. My imagination didn’t fail me. I stopped because I wasn’t seeing any value in my efforts. It was challenging to get readers who would unlock the locked episodes and read. The Vella bonus never stopped coming each month, but it was getting leaner as more writers joined the program.
Amazon’s Kindle Vella experiment didn’t work out the way they anticipated but people will always remember Vella as the program that spurred them to write stories they wouldn’t have written.
“We’ve made the difficult decision to gradually wind down Kindle Vella in February 2025 as the program hasn’t caught on as we’d hoped. We are grateful for the authors who have participated and for the stories you have shared with readers. We remain committed to experimenting and testing new ideas to deliver unique and delightful experiences for both readers and authors.”
I’ve downloaded and saved my unfinished series. I’ve also started working on them so I can finish them and publish them on KDP. One has already passed 40,000 word count while the other two have almost the same word count rate. Previously you were not allowed to immediately republish Vella stories on KDP but now you can. According to the email, Kindle Vella stories can now be published as eBooks on KDP. They’ve updated content guidelines allowing Vella writers to republish their stories immediately as an eBook.
