The big news train for 2024 keeps rolling on!

As of May 20, Episodes of my second story, Dangers to Society, have begun to appear on Amazon’s serial platform Kindle Vella. A new episode will come out every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday through summer 2024. Episodes will typically consist of 1-2 chapters, depending on length. The first episode has the prologue and first three chapters because they’re a little shorter. The first 10 episodes are free to read (that gets you through chapter 18!), so you totally have no reason not to give it a try! Episode 2 comes out May 22nd.

If you’ve not heard of it, Kindle Vella is part of Amazon’s Kindle platform and offers readers the chance to “pay as you go” if you will, purchasing tokens to spend on serial story episodes as they become available, and the reader wants to read them. Episodes 11-on cost 10 tokens each. With Amazon’s best deal, a token costs less than a penny, so Vella is actually less expensive than buying the whole eBook. But what if you start a Vella story and don’t finish? Get a quarter of the way in lose interest? Done. No more books on your DNF pile you paid 100% for. It’s also an avenue for authors who crave more interaction and a potentially far shorter runway to get their latest work to their audience. Vella also gives authors the option to add notes and polls to each episode to help further connect readers to their favorite authors. To use Vella, you’ll need an Amazon account and a Kindle device, Kindle app on your phone, or via the Kindle website on your preferred web browser. Experienced Kindle eBook readers will already have everything they need.

Now let’s talk Dangers to Society!

Dangers to Society is an adult contemporary superpowers (but not superheroes) fantasy. It features a lot of swearing, a little bit of spice (1.5-2), and just a smidge of sudden, graphic violence. It’s light-hearted, a little smart, a lot stupid, and crazy fun.

I love, love, love this story – it’s right up my alley. I really hope it does well, either on Vella, or as a published novel after the episodes are done releasing, because I truly want a reason to return to this world (other than my own interest). There’s already a primary outline for Dangers to Society Vol. 2 floating around in my head, and it’d be great to get to work on that soon.

Game of Thrones was still en vogue when I began writing Dangers to Society and I had begun to read the massive Stormlight Archives books by Brandon Sanderson, so I was interested in attempting a story with multiple main characters and points of view. It features five viewpoints (well, really six, but that guy gets the Ned Stark treatment early).

Dangers to Society is my answer to the question “What would happen if our society right now (or very near in the future) began to develop superpowers, most of which were silly?” Well, for one, we’d get a new government agency. And some compelling agents to follow. And some politicians who want to control things. Natch. Because the abilities can be silly, we end up with some particularly goofy ones, which I think is great fun. But there are some dangerous ones out there too (hence the title). We follow four agents based in Dallas, TX as they navigate their own abilities, catalog others, and try to uncover a mysterious plot that unfolds when facts in the president’s press conferences prove to be wrong. But don’t just take my word for it, here’s a few quotes from readers:

Tight pacing, great characters, relevant modern setting, and an entertaining humorous turn of phrase

A rare pleasure

Evident technical skill and a keen intelligence

Beautifully Written

Emotional, tactile, immediate

Impressed the f**k out of me

Gotta say, when people drop those kinds of compliments on your work, it’s pretty humbling. Yet despite how awesome D2S is, I had no luck with finding an interested agent for the manuscript. I will admit, the story is a little off-the-wall, the word count is higher than agents like, and because it’s far more character-driven than plot-driven, it’s a slower ride. It also entered the query trenches on the heels of Marvel’s Avengers: Endgame movie and the beginning of Marvel fatigue, the emergence of The Boys on Prime Video, and the continued struggles of the DC cinematic universe to connect with audiences as effectively as Marvel usually does. So, I’m not surprised an agent didn’t bite. If they don’t have an acquisitions editor asking for something (“Hey, I need a wacky superpowers story for adults!”), the agent will simply pass because they’re too busy to work on anything but stuff they know will have better odds with the publishers. But everyone who’s read Dangers has loved it, so it didn’t feel right to just let it languish in the drawer, never to see the light of day.

Since I cracked open the self-publishing seal last fall with Steelwing, I felt that I needed to get Dangers to Society out there. And I’m curious about Kindle Vella, because of the immediacy of publication, and it kinda fits with the modern TikTok vibe of short attention spans. Read a chapter on the toilet, anyone? Plus, D2S is also a fairly long story (by modern publishing standards) at 130k words (necessary because of all the viewpoints), so I have room to publish somewhere around 40 episodes which I think would be a nice test to see how Vella works.

A wonderful (and very patient) artist created this cover last year for a potential self-published D2S novel before my focus went to releasing Steelwing. I think it’s pretty fun, but it’s proven kind of divisive. Some really like the meteors and butterfly motif (done by yours truly), others really like the graphic novel panels style. I also made the following prototype, following design trends of recent thrillers:

I think they all have good qualities, though perhaps none of them are a perfect representation of everything that goes on in the book – certainly not the humor, which is subtle, but always around the corner. Drop a comment below as to which you prefer!

Releasing a story on Vella is an exclusive gig. It can only be there while the story is ongoing. Once the final episode of the story has been out for 30 days, I can release a full eBook and physical versions, so look for those this fall to add to your collection as well. More news on that here later this summer.

A Call to Action:

There’s a handy QR code to use to go straight to the Vella Dangers to Society page (or click on it). Get to reading! Since the first episode is free, tell your friends! More than that, I hope you love it and want to keep reading. I tend to do most of my social media stuff on Instagram these days, so look for me there and drop some comments, questions, or mention your favorite silly superpower.

As always, thanks for reading. M

(Update note: This post was updated on June 2nd with fresh info on the cost of Tokens and the number of free episodes)