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Originally Posted by DrNefario
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I have seen discussions about "going wide" - not using KDP and KU with the exclusivity lock-in - in various places and it seems that it's fairly disastrous to the author's income.
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I have often seen this claim repeated and occasional anecdotal evidence (i.e. a few authors).
I see no proof of it. Most of the KU subscription goes to Amazon and unlike local physical libraries loaning ebooks, Amazon gets the content free. Here libraries must buy the content and there is a small per loan royalty. Even if it's borrowed and not read.
Exactly how genuine is any extra promotion by Amazon for a title in KDP Select / KU? It looks like a scam heavily promoted by Amazon. They also due to "reasons" need to implement privacy busting monitoring of page turns to decide what to pay instead of a per loan royalty. They also decide the size of "pot" to be shared for KU.
On actual regular book sales less than 1% of authors make a living wage. Even fewer make big money. You'll only hear about the successful people on KU or paid (anti) "Social Media", not the millions who make nothing or less than their costs.
OTOH I know people that have about 1/2 the sales are outside Amazon even though Amazon have over 90% of English language ebook market.
KU exclusitivity rules don't apply to big publishers. Yet. Amazon is building a monopoly.