Serials
Amazon announced the launch of the new Kindle Vella program in April 2021. They wanted to have a good supply of stories to attract readers at launch; therefore, they made it available to authors a few months before making it available to readers. It has now launched, and it remains to be seen whether it will be a success, but those of us with stories to tell have a handy forum to try them out on.
Kindle Vella is Amazon's foray into the "serialization market." This is a "read em as I write em" format, where authors are expected to post a new episode every few days, and readers follow along and read them as they appear.
I present a new, previously unpublished tale, "A Walk in the Woods," complete and ready, as originally written. Although nominally complete, I have several more episodes in mind for "Walk," and, assuming readers like it, will expand the story over time. At present, it consists of 11 episodes, totaling around 22,000 words. I also am presenting a new adventure, as yet unfinished, that I call "The Hat and the Canary." Read along with me as I write the story. I intend to try to post a new episode every weekend, if my day job will allow. I have a large number of episodes outlined and in various stages of completion, so dive in and follow along.
Further, I have a whole new series of Young Adult stories set up as prequels to my Chromosome Quest stories. When not pushing to get a new episode of "Hat" out, I will be working on the next episode of "Tommie." This is the most challenging, since I am starting from scratch, and do not have pre-existing work to draw from.
Given the episodic nature of the platform, I figure I need to write about 1000 words a week to keep material flowing. That's my goal, and I intend to try to carve out enough time to do this on the weekends. So watch this space as we go forward, and together we shall see how this all works. It's an experiment, but hopefully worthwhile.
Please check out the Vella pages and let me know if you like the material.
Your participation is vital!! So go grab the free tokens Amazon
is giving away and dive in!
Sneaking away undetected wasn't as easy as he hoped.
In his haste to avoid detection by the Aliens, he slips on the moss-covered creekside, takes a nasty tumble, and awakens in an extraterrestrial hospital.
Alone, injured, and far from home, he must cope with an Alien culture and technology indistinguishable from magic.
Not your typical First Contact story — not your typical Aliens, and
not your typical intergalactic love story.
Available Exclusively on Amazon Kindle Vella
I guess I'd better tell the story straight.
I see by the look on your face, I've jiggered your boggle circuit!
Last fall, this flying saucer crashed on a farm outside town. The Army came and gathered up the wreckage and hauled it away—telling us it was a weather balloon. Nobody believed them, of course. The place where it crashed has become a local mecca. People like to hunt for any piece of scrap that the Army might have missed, but, of course, no one has ever found anything.
Not until we found the Time Machine.
Available exclusively on Amazon Kindle Vella
In Development:
For a long time I have been envisioning a series of juvenile/young adult stories in the vein of the old Stratemeyer Syndicate stories, such as Tom Swift, or the Grosset & Dunlap Rick Brant series. The first series I outlined features a protagonist named Tommie Powers. There is a private joke behind that name that forms the basis of a mini-contest. Clues to the solution are sprinkled throughout the story.
The first reader to contact me with a reasonably accurate description of the name's genesis will receive a genuine, certified, autographed paperback edition of Chromosome Quest.
The beauty of the Vella platform is that I can write a few short pieces, place them online, and see if they attract an audience. If they don't, I can abandon them in the spirit of the "Fail Fast" philosophy as espoused by Elon Musk and others. If no one reads these stories, I can take them down, and never finish them.
Next Project: Tommie Powers and the Invisible Spacecraft