Quote:
Originally Posted by JSWolf
This is different. This is waiting for one book to be finished after reading part of it. What happens if the author needs to go back and change some things because of what was written that was not yet released? It just does not seem like a workable solution.
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It's not. BLOGGERS write one post at a time. AUTHORS plan out their stories. Vella is a preposterous concept that didn't work when two of the most respected authors in their genres tried it twenty years ago (Stephen King and Piers Anthony, both), and it won't work now.
I'll wager a shiny new quarter that this doesn't last two years because 95% of the "books" started on the platform will vanish within the first three chapters as writers try to grunt out one chapter at a time and write themselves into corners they can't get out of. Plus, why the hell would I pay 50 cents for a chapter when there are whole BOOKS out there that are 99 cents to $2.99? (I'm not even talking about classics" you can find for free. I'm talking about books published in the last five years like John Conroe's "Demon Accords" series or Charles Stross's "The Laundry Files," not a ONE of which is more expensive than $8.99.)
So you have crap content by writers who don't know how to author, and a consumer who doesn't want to pay that much for the content because it's crap and he can get better somewhere else. On top of THAT, as an author I looked at the payout and a 5,000 word chapter makes me $0.00475 per sale. I have to sell a thousand copies to make a nickel. Wow. I can't wait to work my ass off on my best writing only to give Amazon 49 cents every time someone buys MY hard effort!
Besides, we live in a world now where we don't even want to wait until next week for a TV show. We stream the entire season at once. ("Witcher" season two is out December 17!)
Amazon really thinks that people will pay fifty cents a CHAPTER, and then wait until a writer finally gets round to releasing it? (When this has already been shown not to work!)
More likely, about 2-4 chapters in, writers are going to discover that their unplanned stories are HARD to write, and give up. There is a REASON everyone in the country has a computer and a keyboard in their pocket and almost no one writes a book with it. Writing books is HARD!
So now you've paid $1.50 for three chapters of a book and the writer has vanished.
Look, in 2004 one of my all time favorite authors (Chris Bunch) released "Corsair." In that book he set several mysteries that were not answered because he expected to write a sequel. But in 2005 he suffered a fatal heart attack and the series stopped at one book with no authors planning to continue it from his notes. It sucks, but we HAVE NO ENDING.
We have no ending to the Firefly TV show, other than that shown in the movie. Robert Jordan's "Wheel of Time" didn't end where he wanted, it ended where Brandon Sanderson finalized it. Why on earth would anyone intentionally start a book KNOWING FULL WELL, that the author is probably not going to complete it?
Don't reward this insipid idea by buying it. I'm rarely this strident against something-- normally I prefer to say, "Buy what you like how you like and read it how you want," but this is such a blatant cash grab from Amazon, and such a total colostomy bag of an idea from every conceivable angle, that I IMPLORE you not to put money in anyone's pocket that is involved in this travesty.
I am literally down on a knee typing this because I am begging. PLEASE do not buy this drivel! Please contact your favorite authors and ask them to release full books, not this serialized trash.