Kindle Vella Primer, Plus Free Access to The Judas Goat

Hi Everyone,

Just a quick note to explain how Kindle Vella works, and to announce that there are now eleven episodes of my new adventure/fantasy novel, The Judas Goat, available on the platform for your reading pleasure.

Here is the story description from Amazon:

“Dave Gillespie’s quest for redemption goes sideways when a box of hallucinogenic mushrooms sends him tripping into a deal with the devil. To win a second chance at life, Dave must prove that destiny is not all powerful by avoiding his predestined deaths in a series of future lives. An irreverent romp through the afterlife, the Golden Age of Piracy, World War II, and America’s war in Vietnam with adult themes, goat-bitten testicles, and other stuff not suitable for kids.”

I’m using Amazon’s new Kindle Vella platform to publish chapters of The Judas Goat as I complete them. Seeing how Kindle Vella is only about a month old, and Amazon hasn’t done a whole lot of marketing to promote the new platform, please allow me to do Mr. Bezos’s work for him.

Kindle Vella is a serialized novel platform. Despite having “Kindle” in the name, the platform has nothing to do with the Kindle e-reader. Instead, all the stories in the Kindle Vella Store are meant to be read on a smartphone, tablet, or computer. With this in mind, episode lengths are limited to between 600 and 5,000 words so that readers can enjoy a full episode during the random breaks in their daily routine.

The first three episodes of all stories are free. To continue reading beyond that point, readers purchase tokens (approx 1oo tokens for $1.00) from Amazon, and then use those tokens to unlock episodes at a rate of 1 token per 100 words. Authors earn 50% of the tokens spent to unlock their episodes.

For the time being, Amazon is giving new Kindle Vella users 200 free tokens to get them hooked, er, started on the platform.

With the help of my tweenage kids, I’ve broken down the math for how much it would cost you, right now, to read the first eleven episodes of The Judas Goat:

First three episodes: Free

Episodes 4 thru 11: 182 tokens

Yup. You can read three months of my work for free, and still have 18 tokens left over.

I’m publishing about one episode per week, and expect the full novel to be about 40 episodes total. So now is a great time to get started because you can do it for free and there are plenty more episodes to come.

Here’s the link: The Judas Goat 

Oh, and please post a short review if you enjoy the story.

Thanks,
Dan