Kindle Unlimited Exclusivity

Since the start of last year I have not been spending any money at Amazon. I’ve been happily buying my reading elsewhere. Today for the first time I ran into a genuine bump. I noticed that Canadian SF author Dennis E. Taylor released a fifth book in his fun and entertaining Bobiverse series last year, and that a 6th and final title in the series is planned for this year. There seemed to be none of his books available other than at Amazon, and the FAQ on his site explains why: he is signed up with Kindle Unlimited, but that comes with exclusivity on his work for Amazon. When he signed up his revenue from outside the Amazon silo was negligible (and now will stay that way, obviously), and his Amazon revenue jumped by 20% at the time. The German translations are available as epubs through Kobo, and there’s the paper editions in the local bookstore. Not sure yet if I’ll read the German ebook version, as I don’t know if Taylor’s subtle ironic style translates well into German. More likely…