At the end of every Vella episode, there is a section for author notes. I always try to give a little insight into the episode and a preview of the next one (as well as ask for likes and faves!). But Amazon doesn’t give much room for notes, and provides no options for formatting. So often I want to say quite a bit, or ask questions of readers, but there either isn’t room, or it just looks like a mash of words too hard to read.
So, these author notes on my website are the solution to offer more insight, ask more questions, and hopefully solve Kindle Vella’s other big problem: getting comments from readers.
Target 10 is my first attempt at writing a serial. I’m getting used to the episodic format and how to balance that with world building. Science fiction requires more of this than a typical romance (most popular category on most serial sites) and my style tends to be more character focused (world-building takes focused effort) so I have to battle format and my natural tendencies when writing serials.
The good news is that I’m having a lot of fun doing it. Target 10 is a story I’ve had in my head for, well, way too long. I came up with the ending first, then worked backwards to create a plot and characters to get me to that end. I’m super happy with the crew of the Demption. They have so many stories to tell beyond what happens to them in Target 10. I’ll be sharing some of those as bonus content, including a short serial about how the crew got together with the Demption.
I also need to give a word of warning about the author’s notes: there may be spoilers. Make sure you read the episode before reading the author’s notes.
Also, the original notes for each episode are sparse (again thanks to Amazon’s format) but I intend to add to them over time. Certainly, the first ten will be short until I can get back to them and add additional thoughts and questions.
So have you read Target 10 yet? Don’t wait, the adventure is moving on!