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#211 |
HP: 9%
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Join Date: Jun 2021
Location: Philippines
Device: Paperwhite 4
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There are quite a few services that sell novels by chapters as the story is written. I hate it though, since I have to spend more to read it completely than purchasing a complete novel.
These things also tend to sacrifice quality for quantity as it may incentivize writers to keep profitable titles alive as long as possible. |
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#212 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Device: Kindles
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The latest update from Amazon on Kindle Vella:
Quote:
Last edited by jhowell; 07-08-2021 at 08:17 AM. |
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#213 |
Wizard
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Join Date: Sep 2012
Location: Ohio
Device: iPhone 13 Pro, iPad mini, iPad Pro 12.9",Paperwhite 6.8", Scribe 2022
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It sounds more and more and more like something aimed at kids.
Features like "Follow, Faves, and Thumbs Up to engage with your story; and purchase Tokens to unlock more episodes." Sounds like an arcade or the latest candy crush game. All tied in with social media and drive by attention spans. Tokens? Unlock? What happened to dollars to buy? They must be bad words now. (I've nothing against candy crush BTW, I play it myself, but never spend money on it) |
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#214 | |
Award-Winning Participant
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Join Date: Feb 2010
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#215 | |
Wizard
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Quote:
I'm 62, anyone under 30 IS a kid to me. ![]() Good grief the picking apart of comments here is fatiguing. |
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#216 | |
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Quote:
I'm 52. Is there a smiley or emoticon we can use to commiserate over how the younger generation is ruining the culture? Last edited by ApK; 07-08-2021 at 10:40 AM. |
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#217 | |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
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Quote:
FWIW. I'm sure that there are 90bajillion definitions out there that disagree with me. Just an observation. Hitch |
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#218 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Device: Kindles
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Kindle Vella went live today: https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella
You can get 200 tokens for free. Each token unlocks 100 words of a story. |
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#219 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Nov 2011
Location: Charlottesville, VA
Device: Kindles
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Vella implementation
Content is divided into episodes of 600 to 5,000 words, each of which can contain a title (shown at the beginning in large text) and an author note (shown at the end in italics.)
In terms of formatting, Amazon intentionally dumbed it down. Only text is allowed with no special characters such as emoji. The only formatting supported is bold, italic, and underline. Some common e-book formatting features not allowed are indented paragraphs, centering or right alignment, lists, tables, fonts, text sizing, hyperlinks, and images. Currently Vella is only available via the web and the Kindle iOS app with support in the Kindle Android app to follow. No mention is made of making it available on e-ink Kindle devices or the PC/Mac apps. I have seen no indications that Vella will ever be coming those platforms. I did some investigation to determine the format and technology behind this new reading experience. The website (https://www.amazon.com/kindle-vella) and the iOS app are implemented very differently. Vella on iOS The Vella experience in the Kindle iOS app treats each episode much like a Kindle e-book. It allows customization in font, size, justification, and other characteristics. However episodes are always displayed in scrolling mode. Paged viewing is not supported. Episodes are stored on the device and can be viewed offline. Standard book reading features, such as dictionary lookup and annotations, are available. Reading position, highlights, and annotations sync between devices. Episodes download in Amazon's proprietary KFX format with strong DRM. Vella in a web browser The implementation of Vella on the web is quite different. The Vella reading experience in a browser is not customizable. Font, size, justification, and line spacing cannot be changed by the consumer. Annotations and highlights made using the iOS app do not appear. Offline viewing is not supported. The website delivers each episode as HTML text with no encryption other than that provided by HTTPS. It is rendered in a way that disables the simple copying of text from the web browser, but there is no other DRM involved. It is fairly easy to copy episode content using the debugging features built into browsers, such as Inspect in Chrome. Locked episodes are only partially downloaded so it is not possible to use the Inspect trick to obtain unpaid content. However once a paid episode is unlocked it's full content is downloaded and becomes potentially copyable. I find the lack of customization, DRM, and other reading features to be surprising. Amazon has already implemented a more flexible reading experience and strong DRM in their Kindle Cloud Reader. I suspect that the current web implementation of Vella was rushed and that a more full featured and locked down version will be coming eventually. |
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#220 |
Grand Sorcerer
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Join Date: Nov 2011
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Falkor
Long before I ever heard of Kindle Vella I came across references to a new Kindle feature called Falkor. Now that Vella has launched it appears that Falkor is actually Amazon's code name for the micro-payment token system used to purchase and unlock Vella episodes.
This make me wonder whether Falkor is actually a separate project from Vella. It may be that Amazon intends to use these tokens for other types of inexpensive purchases in the future in order to reduce transaction fees. Correction: After seeing the Falkor name more frequently I retract the above statement. As far as I can tell Falkor is the code name for Kindle Vella, not just the token payment system. Last edited by jhowell; 09-20-2021 at 01:16 PM. Reason: Correction |
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#221 | |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
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Quote:
(Falkor..I'd love to know the thought process behind that one...Luck Dragon, right?) Hitch |
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#222 | |
Grand Sorcerer
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Quote:
Perhaps someone at Amazon likes The Neverending Story. |
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#223 |
Bookmaker & Cat Slave
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#224 |
Grand Sorcerer
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A code name for a new Kindle feature having something to do with periodicals that I saw recently is "newtron". My best guess it that it's a mashup of "news" and "neutron".
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#225 |
Bibliophagist
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I've received 5 author newsletter pushing their Vella books so some authors seem to be seeing the value in it. One of them is apparently going to release a full length (300+ pages) novel in Vella sized chunks. A bit of quick calculation suggests that I would be better off buying a published in one chunk ebook instead.
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