In recent months, we can possibly say recent years, Amazon has not led the ebook market as it used to, this has not been an impediment for it to continue to bill billions in this market.
However, the launch he has made this week is not only interesting but also will create a trend within the world of reading that surely some company has already started its clone.
The launch we are talking about is Kindle Vella, a service that some will qualify as a cheap version of Kindle Unlimited but that I personally prefer to qualify as a child of this service.
Kindle Vella is a service similar to Kindle Unlimited but focused on micro-reading lovers, that is to say, short readings that do not usually reach 20 pages. In this case, Amazon has indicated to us that there will be no reads of more than 5.000 words. Thus, Kindle Vella offers us readings in several chapters or series where the reader can enjoy them for a small price.
Unlike Kindle Unlimited, Kindle Vella allows you to read the first chapters or volumes for free and then if we want to continue reading we have to pay for the readings with tokens that we can buy from Amazon.
Kindle Vella is a service for lovers of short readings
It may seem a bit cumbersome, but it is like a television series taken to the world of reading where the first episodes are free and then you have to pay for it.
But Amazon has wanted to go further and has tried to mix technological trends in this service. A) Yes, the tokens that we buy will not only be used to exchange new volumes or chapters but also it will also serve to speak directly to the writer, make comments or forums about certain readings or some other activities that Amazon intends to organize with the authors of the works and their users.
Kindle Vella is an Amazon project that they have been working on for several months, so we will not find few readings, but we have worked with thousands of writers from the ebook store to bring content to the new platform. We are curiously the opposite of what happens with Prime reading, which despite being quite old, still does not offer a catalog as extensive as Kindle Unlimited.
The launch of Kindle Vella has also been or is a novelty since it is not typical of Amazon. Currently we can only find Kindle Vella for the United States, that is, through this site from Amazon.com. And, interestingly, you can also use through the Kindle app for iOS. Yes, at the moment we will not be able to use it on the Kindle or on the Amazon tablet. Something that has surprised many and that some do not believe.
Obviously, Kindle Vella will come to Amazon tablets and their ereaders, even more so when the service receives the same name as the family of ereaders, but it is still striking.
Regarding the tokens, they will not be the Amazon Coins but it is a token, called that way on the web, that we can acquire the pack of 200 tokens for the modest price of $ 1,99 and the pack of 1700 tokens for $ 14,99.
We know that Amazon has spoken and worked with thousands of writers to create this service so I do not think that this service is something that disappears with time or that only remains with the United States market, so it will be a matter of time before reaches other Amazon devices and apps, but how will it get there?
Amazon with Kindle Vella raises an option that may be interesting for writers, Amazon itself and more assiduous readers: prepaid reading. Since its launch, Kindle Unlimited has raised a lot of controversy over how royalties from ebooks were distributed, in Kindle Vella the user will pay with a token for reading and the price of that token will be shared between Amazon and the writer. If the service has a large audience, both the writer and Amazon would earn a lot of money, which could become the default payment model in Kindle Unlimited. For all this I think that Kindle Vella is not just another service for reading via streaming but a novelty that will mark the ebook market. Unfortunately it has not reached Europe, but we can be content with the American version.