Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

You may have heard me shouting from the rooftops about my Kindle Vella story when Amazon’s new serialized story platform launched in July. The YA cozy mystery I’d penned back in 2019 and secretly uploaded to Vella in April was chosen as one of a dozen featured stories on the new site, and naturally I was thrilled. I posted twice about it in a flurry of celebration. And then I went quiet.

Why? Because ten days after Vella launched, one of my dream agents, who I’d queried back in the spring, emailed. She was intrigued! She wanted to see more! Could I send a partial? My heart sank. Instantly I regretted publishing the book. There was no way she’d consider Murder by Milkshake now that it was publicly available on Vella.

But what if I unpublished it? It hadn’t even been two weeks. I would just be honest with her and explain the situation and hope for the best. I sent the partial and notified Vella that I wanted the story taken down.

Are you sure? they asked. That decision would be permanent; it could not be undone. I would lose my likes, my reviews, my subscribers. I said I was sure, and Vella processed my request. Two weeks later, the agent sent a rejection.

At first I was undeterred. I’d only submitted Murder by Milkshake to a dozen agents and that had resulted in two requests for partials and four personalized rejections—pretty good numbers. I told myself I’d just keep submitting and pursuing a traditional book deal.

But my heart wasn’t in it.

It’s not that I’ve given up on the idea of traditional publishing, it’s just that Kindle Vella is something fun and fresh and new. And I think differently about self-publishing than I used to; I love the idea of it. I forget where I read this, but someone mentioned how ego is not what drives writers to self publish, ego is what prevents them from doing it. And that makes sense to me. I remember how afraid I was to start blogging back in 2013 and how, once I got over myself, I started to really enjoy it. Because it’s just a blog. And a book is just a book.

Murder by Milkshake is pure genre fiction, the kind of book that can do well as an indie. In the seven weeks it was on Kindle Vella it earned more money than my traditionally published book earned in seven years. People were reading it and showing support, and I made a mistake in throwing all of that away simply because an agent came calling.

When she rejected the manuscript, it was just that—another rejection. But unpublishing the book came with a real sense of loss. I’d been a part of something daring and new and I’d taken a risk; giving that up felt terrible. But I’m glad it happened, because it helped me realize the self-publishing path I’d chosen for this particular book was the correct one.

I know because I republished Murder by Milkshake last week on Kindle Vella. And my heart is definitely in it.

Whew, that was wild! Now that I’ve had a chance to catch my breath, let me tell you what led me to the Kindle Vella platform and how it’s going. This post is very long and mostly about me so if you’re just here for the Vella info, and I don’t blame you, scroll down to the screenshots. 🙂

Dreaming up Sweet Dreams

On a Saturday morning in January of 2019 I was sitting in my office at work enjoying a coffee break when suddenly I had a brilliant idea. It came out of nowhere in a burst of inspiration and I remember thinking, wait, has no one actually done this before?!

As a writer, you know there are only so many ideas, and none of them are actually original, but I thought that maybe I had found one.

I’d recently discovered a love for cozy mysteries. I adored everything about them—their punny titles, their cutesy covers, their formulaic plots stuffed with over-the-top characters and cupcake recipes. They were murder mysteries that didn’t take themselves too seriously, and they always made me laugh.

Waiting for the next cozy mystery in a series reminded me of waiting for the next Sweet Valley High or Cheerleaders book as a teenager. Falling into the familiar where you know all the characters and the setting and structure of the story and can read it in one day—a simple guilty pleasure.

The readers of cozy mysteries are fiercely loyal, and they are mostly middle-aged women. This same demographic makes up a large portion of those who read young adult fiction.

So why were there no young adult cozy mysteries?

I checked, and if they’re out there, I can’t find them. There are YA murder mysteries like One of Us Is Lying, and the Truly Devious series, but these are thrillers. Cozies are very different from thrillers and there aren’t any for YA readers. But I bet YA readers would love them. Think of Scooby-Doo, but with murder. A beloved cast of characters involved in SERIOUS STUFF like kidnappings and hauntings or in this case death but it’s FUNNY. Where are these books for teens?! Where are the short and sweet guilty pleasures that adults get with cozies and that middle grade readers get with Goosebumps?

So that was my brilliant idea. I’d write a YA cozy mystery series. I’d write the book I wanted to see in YA and subvert the tropes I was tired of seeing. No dead parents, no clueless/neglectful/abusive parents, no tacked on romantic subplot, no bookworm/nerdy-girl main character and, in line with the rules for cozies, no sex, drugs, profanity, or gore.

I’ve also long wanted to see shorter books. Growing up I could choose between 1,000 pages of Stephen King or 180 pages of Sweet Valley High, and they both fully qualified as books to me. Why does everything now have to be 400 pages long? I decided I would stubbornly keep my cozy mysteries to 45,000 words, no more. That’s plenty for a story, especially if you cut the ubiquitous and tiresome romantic subplot. That’s just what I’d do.

I let the idea percolate awhile, and then in the fall of 2019, I spent several weeks dreaming up my series. I also studied how to write cozies, because I wanted to do it right. Cozies have rules, and you cannot break them. Some of these rules are

1) Theme: there must be a theme, and it’s usually centered around the main character’s occupation or hobby, and you must show your main character engaged in this work/hobby. For example, there are bakery cozies, crafting cozies, and bookstore cozies. I chose ice cream for my theme, because my daughter had recently started working at an ice cream shop. I named my fictional ice cream shop Sweet Dreams Ice Cream Parlour.

2) Pets: there must be a pet, and pet care must be shown. Bookstore cats are common. I’m a dog person, so the Sweet Dreams pet is a golden retriever, and she’s amazing; you’ll love her.

3) PG rating: there cannot be gratuitous violence, profanity, or sex, all deaths are discovered, not witnessed, and there must always, ALWAYS, be a happy ending. The MC is rarely in any real danger for long.

4) Amateur Sleuth: cozies are not police procedurals. The sleuth is an amateur, and the mysteries are puzzle-like and solved by piecing together clues through interviews with several suspects. Often though, there is a contact within law enforcement, and in Sweet Dreams that’s retired detective Charlie Moran. You’ll love him too (he’s a cozy mystery fan, but insists he only reads them for the recipes.)

5) Murderer: the murders in cozies are based on motives like greed and jealousy. These aren’t serial killers but everyday people who are part of the community. Likewise, when apprehended they tend to explain their crimes in petulant monologues: again, think Scooby-Doo.

6) Victim: the victim in a cozy is often someone who is highly disliked, usually laughably terrible, and this allows for lots of suspects.

7) Puns: cozy titles are clever and cute, and puns are definitely intended. Some recent examples are Mocha, She Wrote, Partners in Lime, Thread on Arrival, and Game of Cones. I tossed around several ideas before settling on Murder by Milkshake.

There were rules I came up with for myself too. My books would be 45,000 words at most. I wouldn’t have any guns. I would keep my main character Genevieve’s friendship with her BFF Brandon platonic and she would remain focused on her one true love, her ice cream shop. No teens would be murdered, and no teens would be murderers. All deaths and suspects would be adults. The teens are the ones who save the day, and of course, they always succeed. Again, cozies have happy endings, you can count on them. They are pure escapist fun.

I wrote the first Sweet Dreams book in fall of 2019, and it was the absolute most fun I’d ever had writing anything. This was a purely plot-driven story, and I cheerfully riddled my book with adverbs, because I like adverbs, and I was going to flout the rules, by God. I wrote with joy, every day, and in thirteen weeks I had my draft. It was so much fun I jumped right into the next book and I wrote that one too. In June I edited Murder by Milkshake and sent it to my critique partner, and after several more months and edits I began submitting it, sure I would find an agent.

I did not find an agent. But I did find Kindle Vella.

What is Kindle Vella?

Kindle Vella is Amazon’s new serialized story platform. Authors can post episodes (chapters) as they’re writing them or, like me, simply post a book that’s already written (although it can’t have been previously published). Readers get the first three episodes free, and then pay for additional episodes with tokens. Tokens cost about a dollar each and are worth one hundred words. So for $9.99 you get 1,100 tokens which buys you about 110,000 words. My book is 45,000 words so it would cost about $4.00 to read it since you wouldn’t be paying for the first three chapters.

Why Vella?

I’ve long considered self-publishing. Having been traditionally published I really don’t feel I have anything to prove, and my books always seem to fall short of the word counts required for traditional book deals. Yet the steep learning curve for self-publishing was daunting—particularly formatting and cover design. It costs several hundred dollars to outsource these things, money I just don’t have. And then Kindle Vella came along and suddenly none of that mattered. You can literally cut and paste text into the text editor and not worry about formatting, and when it comes to the cover, well, you simply need one good image, eliminating the problem of balancing graphics and text on the cover and having a cover that works on ebooks and print books.

When I learned about all of this in April I was so excited! I would upload Murder by Milkshake on Kindle Vella and while I waited for it to go live I would edit the second book. I would use a pen name and create a new website dedicated to Sweet Dreams Mysteries. I’d create Sweet Dreams social media accounts and promotional material and devote all my writing time to making the series successful. I… did none of these things. Well, besides uploading Murder by Milkshake. I did do that, and then I decided to edit my middle grade horror book Halloween Eternal and didn’t think much about the Vella launch at all. And then Vella launched and out of the thousands of books uploaded to the site, Murder by Milkshake was one of twenty-five chosen for the featured stories page.

When I saw my book on the front page, I was elated and absolutely stunned. I was also, of course, instantly regretful. If only I’d worked on that website! If only I’d commissioned an image for the cover. If only I’d followed through with my promotion plans. But I didn’t, and now I had to fix it as best I could. I reached out to a graphic designer on Fiverr and told her I needed something fast, an image for Vella that had ice cream and was murder-y but also cheerful, could she do that? She could, and she did. I LOVE the image she created. I uploaded it and changed my pen name to my real name and announced my exciting news in a blog post and on Twitter. And then I sat back and watched the numbers.

It took a while to figure out how to access the Kindle Vella dashboard, but once I figured it out I was entranced. I’ve published one book traditionally as well as several stories and essays and I’ve never had access to numbers like this. It’s fascinating to see how many people are reading and which chapters they’re reading and where I’m losing them. It’s obvious, for example, that there is a problem with chapter four.

These screenshots are from Saturday, July 17, four days after Vella launched. So far, no one has read past chapter nine.

Is it worth it?

That depends on your reasons for publishing. One of the reasons I loved the idea of Vella so much is because I mostly just wanted a platform to make my stories available and I wanted them to look nice. Vella does that for me.

Without that front page placement though, I probably wouldn’t have any readers at all. And it remains to be seen whether even one person will read my entire book. If you’re looking for validation or money, you may not find it here, but that’s true of publishing in general.

Then again, I’m sure there are authors on there who did everything right and prepared and promoted and have thousands of reads and are making money and gaining lifelong fans. Vella gave me a platform and I have only myself to blame for not taking full advantage of it by having my book professionally edited first and having a promotion plan in place.

For now, I’m keeping Murder by Milkshake up on Vella, but I will continue to seek an agent for my adult gothic suspense The House on Linden Way and my middle grade horror Halloween Eternal.

I don’t know if I’ll get a chance to publish Sweet Dreams Mysteries traditionally, and now my secret is out. Maybe someone else will run with it and have better luck securing representation. If that happens, I’ll be envious, but I’ll also cheer them on, because I still believe the world needs a YA cozy mystery series and that all of us, but especially teens, need more laughter in our lives. 🙂