It’s a business decision that affects an author’s rights to their own books and reader accessibility.

 

While Kindle Unlimited is an amazing program for avid book readers to access (paying a subscription fee to access the KU Catalogue including thousands of books), there are legal, contract binding restrictions that come with being a Kindle Unlimited author.

​

• Amazon requires you are EXCLUSIVE with them

• Only Amazon readers can access your ebooks

• Your promotion and sales options are very limited

• You are paid much differently – instead of a percentage of royalties for Amazon selling your ebook, you are paid per page read. This is a tradeoff for two reasons:​

  • Brass tax - it averages out that authors make less money on their books because they aren’t selling their books, but allowing people to borrow them at a reduced rate.

  • You have access to a concentrated reading audience which may result in more Amazon readers finding your books (yay!)