My serene, centered side understands & accepts the realities of life as an independent author &—yeah right, replies my jaded side.
I mean, come on—there I was, reeling from the news that Amazon was pulling the plug on Kindle Vella just as I was ready to upload episodes of Core Haven (see my previous post). But then out of the blue, I see my novel ranking at or near the top of a couple tags/categories on that soon to be defunct platform (i.e., action, thriller).
The irony is that not very many readers have downloaded the locked episodes. So…does that mean those who actually did so liked it enough to fav it? Or as my jaded side pipes up—ah hell, that doesn’t mean anything since the disgruntled readers & writers are looking elsewhere & not even bothering to spend the tokens they’ve already bought.
Just to complicate things, of course, my naive side wonders what might have happened if:
- Amazon hadn’t put Kindle Vella on the chopping block
- I’d launched Core Haven a year ago
- I’ve slipped through a portal into an alternate universe & will now switch my passion from writing to sculpting.
Oh well, now that my various sides have vented, ruminated, & fantasized a bit, I think I’ll opt for easing back into a serene, centered attitude while I wait to see what actually happens after I launch Coren Haven as a companion novel to Pearl Fields and the Oregon Meltdown on the Kindle Store early in 2025.
Keep you posted.
Drew
P.S. For what it’s worth, I’m really not making up the part about rankings on Kindle Vella (link to Core Haven).
5 responses to “The Irony of It All”
The KV news has been super hard to deal with, so much so that I’m stepping back from writing (I can fall back on editing & PA work) and trying out other creative mediums. Part of me wishes I had started earlier on the platform, but it is what it is. I liked my time on Vella but 2025 will not be a writing year for me (probably) what platform are you moving to?
Jessa,
Not sure which direction I’m going. Right now I’m formatting the recombined novel to launch on the Kindle Store, but I’m also looking at Medium for some of my serialized/screenplay fiction.
I know what you mean about being discouraged about KV. I hope you find your time away from fiction writing restorative. I try to follow the advice of one of my writing teachers by “refrigerating” each of my projects along the way. Seems to help my attitude.
Good luck in all you do & thanks for the comment.
Drew
Thank you! Wishing you lots of luck as well ❤ I hope that the new formats work well for you! I've seen some really good things about Medium.
I'm definitely keeping a log of ideas that I might return to one day, or maybe I'll just find a new way to do storytelling.
Either way, I enjoy your blog!
Jessa,
I have a few KV tokens left but didn’t find a way to search by author. Any of your stories you’d recommend?
The one I had the most chapters on was called True Love’s Kiss: Sleeping Beauty Retelling. Clean romance fantasy, I was enjoying the story and want to come back to it eventually, but it’s on break until I figure everything out :>