Bad Contract Alerts: NovelSnack/Any Stories/ReadInk/ - Writer Beware (R)

45,000 words a month? No. Doesn't leave time to sleep.

Panzer made a trip to the Writer Beware (R) site and he found an important post about bad contracts there.

Victoria Strauss shows in her post that NovelSnack, Any Stories and ReadInk are all part of one company. These are serialized fiction apps. The post then addresses the problems in the NovelSnack contract. Each section of the contract is highlighted and then explained. The contract is so complicated you'll need to read the post yourself to understand it.

Panzer says, "Who can write 45,000 words per month? Why would anybody agree to that?"

Note: This is a very, very long post. You'll need to decide what to bring to snack on while you read this post.

To read the post tootle over to Bad Contracts

All About Amazon Vella

 

Let's look into this.

For the last week all Panzer has been hearing in the Catosphere is about Amazon's Vella. To help you learn about it our inquisitive kitty began a search of his own to gather information.

 

Panzer found opinions and information in a post on a blog, in a YouTube video and on the Amazon site. Vella is Amazon's newest publishing endeavor. On it you can read serialized stories and novels. In that way it's similar to Wattpad. The reader does, however, pay for each installment after the first. That's how Amazon and authors get paid.

 

Panzer says, "Here's some of the interesting stuff I found out there."

 

Note: This will be a day long project for you, so make your own eating and camping arrangements.

 

To read the Kindlepreneur's post tootle over to Vella information  

To read Amazon's instructions tootle over to Amazon Vella

To watch the YouTube video about Vella tootle over to Vella

A Serial Publishing Platform That Earns Money for Indie Creators - Jane Friedman Blog

Today, Panzer was tootling around in the Panzermobile when he heard oohing and awing coming from ahead in the Catosphere. It didn't take our adventuresome kitty long to find the location of all the hullabaloo. It was at the Jane Friedman Blog site. With no digging at all he found a post about Tapas Media that was causing all the noise.

According to Jane Friedman's post, Tapas Media has recently opened their platform to allow authors to self publish their serialized material (novels) there. This means the site is now open to authors/creators of web comics and novels. While Tapas Media has headquarters in both Seoul, South Korea, and San Francisco, California, according to the post its 1.6 million readers are mostly in North America. Author/creators get paid for their work in three ways: by advertising on their work, by readers tipping them, or by being upgraded to 'Premium' content. Two author/creators are interviewed for the post. One is located in Malaysia and the other in the United States, so this appears to be a global platform.

Always listen to the kitty.

Panzer says, "Listen to this little kitty when he says, 'Don't put your paw print on a contract until you read it all the way through to make sure you understand it.'"

Note: This is a l-o-n-g post. Bring a thermos of tea and four muffins for today's reading selection.

To read the post, tootle over to Tapas Media

Monetizing Serialized Fiction

Monetizing?

Panzer visited steampunk author Lindsay Buroker's blog. He found an interesting guest post by Zachary Bonelli.  Zachary is the author of the serial Voyage.

Zachary discusses the difference between a novel and a serial. A novel is divided into chapters which cannot standalone. A serial is divided into novellas which are each self-contained stories and can standalone. Pretty simple, huh?

The next question Panzer wanted answered was how the monetizing works. According to Zachary and the information he quotes, if each of the novellas of the serial are sold for 99 cents, readers will be more likely to pay the small amounts and the author will make more sales. Later, the novellas can all be put together and sold as a "boxed set" for a higher price. In this way the author will maintain a long-term income stream.

To read Zachary's story of how Voyage was put together as a serial and how the "monetizing" works, tootle over to Monetizing Serialized Fiction