The Curious Case of Kindle Vella

I thought about Kindle Vella all summer (I even surveyed my subscribers about their interest). I had a new story (a soccer romance) I thought would fit the ‘serialized’ nature of the Vella, titled DELAY OF GAME.

I finally took the plunge, and the first episode of DELAY OF GAME went live on September 8.

Five more episodes posted with no problem. And then… trouble with a capital A (as in ‘Amazon’)!

Have you ever heard the phrase “a chink in the armor”?

It refers to an area of vulnerability, such as a weak spot in a figurative suit of armor.

I used that phrase in DELAY OF GAME episode 7, and Amazon blocked the episode. I believe they did this because their ‘bots’ read that phrase as a racial slur.

I was entirely willing to change the phrase, but after a week of emails to Amazon support (and even a phone call with a live human being), they gave me no way to make the change. The EDIT button remained stubbornly un-clickable.

In the meantime, I heard from friends and readers who were having issues accessing Vella (never a good thing!).

To be completely honest here – I got fed up. Amazon expects us authors to bring our readers to their new platform and does nothing to help us do so.

The upshot is that I requested that DELAY OF GAME be unpublished from the Vella platform.

To those who were following DELAY OF GAME, I apologize. I have another option for this story that I’m now exploring, so stay tuned!

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