Kindle Vella stories are published one short episode at a time, ranging from 600 to 5,000 words.
To hook you on the story, Amazon gives you the first three episodes of every story for free.
However, the Vella service still has some growing pains.
felipepelaquim / Unsplash
Mobile reading is perfect for serialized books.
Its hard to concentrate on long stretches of text when you are using a small screen.
Short Stuff
I started by navigating to the Amazon website and browsing the selection of available books.
Amazon
This was where I ran into my first snag.
The Vella service was launched this month, and there werent many choices available.
The Vella store offered lots of romance books and some amateurish-seeming science fiction.
Nothing grabbed my attention until I foundA Dogs Life by the author John Sibley.
The narrative nonfiction structure of this book made it an easy read as a serial.
I was immediately impressed with the attractive presentation of the book.
I used the iOS Kindle app and it worked perfectly well.
Its easy to search for books you like.
you could use tags to browse for specific topics and genres to find stories.
I also appreciated having the option to use the “following” feature.
Theres also an easy way to signal whether you like a book or not.
you could leave a Thumbs Up for every episode you enjoy.
Buying books isnt quite as simple as using Amazon’s One-Click purchase.
This makes it easy to spend more than you intended.
Im not sure why Amazon didnt include the option to just pay for each book you want to buy.
Books as Video Games?
Amazon has managed to gamify the reading experience.
Apparently, its not enough to enjoy literature for its own sake anymore.
Literature is a personal experience and artistic experience that can be devalued with a simple thumbs-up.
Once a week, users who have purchased virtual tokens can favorite the story they enjoyed most.
Mobile reading is perfect for serialized books.
Its hard to concentrate on long stretches of text when you are using a small screen.
Im looking forward to seeing how Amazon expands this service.
