Should an author choose an exclusive or nonexclusive license with his book distributor? First, let’s be clear about the difference, and then let’s consider the reasons an author would choose one or the other. Let’s also take a look at how this effects readers in the short-term and long-term. You’ll see how relevant this is to authors (and readers) to what BooksOnline offers authors.

• Non-Exclusive Distribution: The author retains the right to sell their book through multiple platforms and retailers simultaneously. This allows for broader reach and flexibility but may limit promotional opportunities from certain distributors.
• Exclusive Distribution: The author agrees to sell their book through a single platform or retailer (e.g., Amazon KDP Select) in exchange for potential benefits like higher royalties, marketing perks, or inclusion in special programs. However, this restricts sales through other channels.

Let’s talk about the elephant in the room–Amazon. Amazon plays hard ball with authors by requiring the exclusive right to sell the author’s book only if the author agrees to opt-in for the “KDP Select” program. This program is how Amazon gets their pound of flesh from the author and makes sure no one else can compete with Amazon by selling that book. The author is caught betwixt a digital decision and their bank account. If the author refuses to go exclusive, Amazon excludes them from their program called Kindle Unlimited (KU). Originally Amazon had a program called Kindle Owners’ Lending Library (KOLL), but that was terminated. This is one of the challenges for authors trying to make a living working with Amazon. Amazon experiments with programs, inventing new ones, dropping old ones, re-inventing programs that don’t work. None of this is good if you’re locked into the Amazon ecosystem.

Kindle Unlimited (KU)

Kindle Unlimited (KU) is a subscription service from Amazon that allows readers to access a limited library of eBooks for a monthly fee. The most popular eBooks are not typically included in KU, so when you see an eBook that you really want, chances are it is not even in the KU subscription. At least, that is my experience. Subscribers borrow and read unlimited books from the KU catalog. They can keep up to 20 books at a time and swap them as needed.

Authors must enroll their eBooks in KDP Select (making them exclusive to Amazon). Instead of earning royalties per sale, they earn a share of the KDP Select Global Fund based on pages read (measured by the “KENP” system). I tried this program for some of my books, and I did not earn a penny in over a year, and yet Amazon was letting people read my eBooks. In my opinion, this “share of the KDP Select Global Fund” is smoke and mirrors. Everytime someone reads your eBook, you’re not promised a few pennies–you’re promised something you can’t calculate–an empty promise. Who get’s all the subscription money? Amazon. How much of it do you get? Possibly nothing or such a fractional share, you have to wonder why on Earth would you allow Amazon to use your books to promote their bookstore, sell millions of readers a subscription service, capture all your readers’ contact information to be able to cross sell your readers, and what do you get? Somewhere close to nothing for an eBook you priced at $9.99 or $14.99 or $29.99. I’ve never seen such a hoax as this in the business world.

Amazon Traps For The Unwary

In addition to choosing between exclusive and nonexclusive, authors have to decide from a complex panoply of Amazon options. Amazon only pay authors a 35% royalty for books priced below $2.99 and above $9.99. Any eBooks priced from $2.99 to $9.99 earns 70%. Amazon also only pays authors 35% on public domain eBooks, even if the author adds commentary and notations that essentially create an entirely new book.

Amazon KDP requires authors to choose whether Amazon will use DRM (Digital Rights Management) to help protect the author’s book from copying and printing, but if the author chooses DRM, consumers are locked within the Amazon ecosystem, and that eBook will not be transferable or readable on many other dedicated eReaders, nor will it be readable on most other eBook reader apps. Consumers don’t like DRM as it hinders their book reading experience and the availability of eBooks they pay full price for. What consumers are discovering is that Amazon’s terms of service only give readers the license to access the eBook on Amazon’s servers. They do not own the eBook.

Consumers as readers are not aware of one of the biggest traps Amazon just set for them. As of Feb 26, 2025, you can no longer download your Amazon eBook to your desktop computer, which has several negative implications for consumers.

This means consumers cannot easily transfer their eBook to other reading devices they use, and it means they have no way to make backups of the eBooks they purchase. But Amazon’s response is that you aren’t purchasing the eBooks–only a license to access them on Amazon’s servers.

This also means Amazon can (and has) edited and changed language in an author’s book without the author’s permission, and those changes will occur the next time you open that eBook on your Kindle. There’s no indication they changed the eBook, and no notification from them. You have no way of knowing what they censored.

This also means that if Amazon removes an eBook entirely from their server, it also goes “poof” on your Kindle, so it will not be on your Kindle anymore. You don’t get your money back either.

Since consumers can no longer download a copy of the eBook they purchased, they no longer can use the free program Calibre to remove the DRM so they can read their eBooks on other devices they like to use or other reading apps they like.

Recommendation to Authors and Readers

I strongly recommend that authors do NOT choose to give Amazon an exclusive license on their eBooks. You’ll lose some royalties, but you should consider also hosting your eBook on BooksOnline.Club where you get 60% (30% base royalty plus 30% through an affiliate link), and we don’t play games with you on prices. You choose your prices on your eBooks, and the royalties never change. The affiliate program at BooksOnline is a powerful marketing system for authors, and it motivates hundreds of other people to share an affiliate link to your books so they can earn 30% from every sale. This blows Amazon out of the water as far as profit potential for authors is concerned.

And since BooksOnline does not force a DRM on readers, and since you own the eBooks you purchase from BooksOnline, you can keep backups and transfer your eBooks to other favorite eReaders you may have, and you can read our eBooks on the largest number of reading apps for both Apple devices and Android devices.

Let’s face it. There’s nothing like BooksOnline.Club for both authors and readers! Join us, please.