What even is Kindle Vella, and what's it good for?

If you know any indie authors, it might have felt like everyone and their mother was throwing stuff up on Kindle Vella when the platform launched a few weeks ago. Our very own Karissa Laurel interviewed fellow author Erica Lucke Dean about it. What even is Kindle Vella? Ebook serials, basically. Like a TV show but short stories. I'll admit, I was only peripherally aware of what was going on at first, and it genuinely confused me why anyone would buy a story by the chapter rather than just downloading a whole ebook.

Out of curiosity, and because I really wanted to read Karissa's steampunk zombie apocalypse story about a sharpshooting gal, I decided to give it a try as a reader (as a writer, I wasn't feeling innovative enough to try my hand at it). To Amazon's credit, they made it really easy to figure out; Vella stuff just showed up in my Kindle app.

I soon realized what these short snippets of fiction were good for: what I've dubbed "incidental reading," something I actually do a lot of, only with internet articles on my phone. Stuck in line at the grocery store? Pull up a quick opinion essay. Getting on the subway? Preload a news article. Waiting for an Uber that's 10 minutes out? Trashy listicle, why not. 

I don't like reading novels in this context because, well, it's rather frustrating to read a long-form story in fits and spurts. Like trying to watch a movie in 5-10 minute segments, with hours, if not days, in between. You forget things because it's been a while, or you're forced to cut yourself off in the middle of a scene because your train arrived, or you awkwardly try to pick up where you left off halfway down a page. 

So I can see the appeal of phone-friendly serials, and I can seem myself adopting Vella as a reader, basically doing with fiction what I was already doing with news content, essays, and clickbait trash. In fact, it might be more fun to follow a quick adventure for that 15-minute subway ride instead of learning more about how doomed we all are.

We'll see if the rest of the world sees the use of it too. Meanwhile, because I can't help trying new things, I'm working on a Vella project myself (albeit a group one).