Come check out this fun and exciting new episodic story platform. (Amazon Vella is only available in the US right now. I’m hoping it will be more widely available soon.)

What is an episodic story?

I had the same question when I first heard about Vella and I’m happy to fill you in…

An episodic story is a story told through a series of episodes, released on a schedule, sorta like episodes in a T.V. series. The cool thing for you, the reader, is that on Amazon Vella, you get to start the book for FREE! You get to read the first 3 episodes (chapters) and find out if the story pulls you in and if you want to read more. If you decide you like where the story is going and want to read more, you purchase only one episode at a time. By the time you are done with the story it will have cost you approximately the same as if you’d bought a book outright. Because you are only paying for only one episode at a time, you can choose to stop purchasing episodes whenever you want. If you get bored with the story, or you decide 10 chapters in it’s not a good fit for you, you are only out a portion of money instead of the full cost of a book. Episodic stories also force fast readers to slow down and enjoy each episode. It can be fun anticipating the next episode release. After you read your first 3 free chapters getting the next episode is easy. There is a symbol of a key in the upper right hand corner of your screen and you can click there to purchase keys to unlock the next episode. How many keys are needed to unlock the next episode are based on the word count of the next episode. This means you only pay for exactly what you get. You also have the opportunity to give direct feedback to the author and might even get the chance to influence how the story plays out in the end.

Sound like fun? Come check it out!