Necessary Adjustments

Well, it was bound to happen at some point.

As an author, especially an independent author, it’s inevitable that plans change, unexpected things come up that require me to change course. Whether it’s delaying the release of a book, taking an extended break, or choosing a new platform, things happen in this industry that you can’t anticipate, and it’s essential that authors allow themselves to be flexible.

I’m facing one such moment. I’ve been working on the third draft of the first book of my Olympic Fates Saga, preparing it for release to Kindle Vella starting on April 1st. Recently, though, I’ve seen a lot of authors posting in Kindle Vella Support groups on Facebook about how dissatisfied they are with the changes being made to the platform. Bonus reduction, extended free promotions to all of their work, and other things have been making me question whether or not this is a platform I want to utilize.

I do have my own Substack that I could use for this series if I wanted to, but I don’t know anything about how to use Substack or Patreon and, honestly, I don’t really have the energy to learn all that I need to. I did that for KV, and now I’m tired. I don’t want to start all over. And until pretty much yesterday, I didn’t know if I was still going to use KV or not because, even with the changes, I figured it couldn’t hurt to try it out and see how it goes for the first book.

But now I’m realizing it could, in fact, hurt. Readers want to know that the books and content they access will be consistently released in one place. If I start the series on KV for one or two books and then decide that I’m moving the story elsewhere, or that I’m abandoning the serial release and publishing straight to ebook and paperback, then I am betraying those readers who invested in my story on KV. That’s not fair to them.

So before I release this book, I absolutely have to decide where I’m going to publish it. There are a LOT of subscription services where you can publish your stories in serial form, so it’s not like I have to choose KV or nothing. But now I’m wondering if perhaps I should skip the serial form altogether and publish straight to ebook and paperback? Because there are a huge amount of readers who either don’t like KV and won’t read stories there, or they can’t access it at all (since it’s only available to Amazon users in the U.S.). And if they don’t like KV, chances are they won’t want to use other subscription services, either.

Moreover, I want my work to be as accessible as possible, and asking folks to pay $5 a month for access to my stories (while it’s less than what reading on KV costs) is much more expensive than if they were to buy the ebook or paperback. $5 a month x 12 months = $60 each year. And based on my writing schedule, I will be publishing two books in the Olympic Fates Saga this year, and neither of them is going to cost $30 to purchase. These novels are much shorter than my Hands of The Order books. Where those clock in at 100,000+ words, these are going to be 50,000-75,000, at most. So the paperbacks won’t cost any more than $15. Two books at $15 each is half of what the yearly subscription would be, and that makes accessing my work less accessible.

Now, I did consider creating a specific system for my subscribers where those who subscribe for the full year receive a signed paperback copy of each Olympic Fates book I published that year. They would receive that copy for free, likely with a few other book things like bookmarks and such. And that idea, I definitely like. However, the logistics of keeping track of all of that, especially as the following begins to grow, seems like it could reach insurmountable heights. Because it’s not just the new subscribers who would get those signed physical copies of the books, but everyone who stays a subscriber every year. Even at only 100 subscribers, that’s a lot of books and a lot of shipping.

So I’ve (almost) come to the decision that this series that was originally intended for Kindle Vella will, in fact, go straight to ebook and paperback. This would also give me a lot more flexibility in terms of when the books release which, given the many different things I intend to get done this year, will be very helpful to my mental health. Because it’s already hard enough to market my books as well as getting people to sign up for my newsletter, and I honestly doubt that the people who already follow me either here or on social media will want to subscribe to yet another platform.

The decision, as I said, is not yet completely finalized. I want to do a little more research to see if there’s a potential subscription platform that would be conducive to this series. If there is, I want to check it out and see if it’s user friendly enough for me. If it is, I might try it out. Might. I’m feeling more like I’ll probably release straight to ebook and paperback, but I’m leaving it open in case there is another platform and it dazzles me enough.

That’s my update! Let me know in the comments if you prefer serial releases or the full book to be released at once.