| Amazon KDPVerified 26 October 2026 | Barnes & Noble PressVerified 21 October 2026 |
|---|---|
| What it is | |
| Type | |
| Publishing Platform · Print-on-Demand | Publishing Platform · Print-on-Demand |
| Formats | |
| Kindle ebook, Paperback, Hardcover, Audiobook (Virtual Voice) | EPUB, Paperback, Hardcover (printed case or dust jacket) |
| Distribution | |
| Amazon stores, Expanded Distribution (print) | bn.com, Barnes & Noble app, NOOK devices and NOOK app (ebooks) |
| Territories | |
| Ebooks: worldwide rights or individual territories. With worldwide rights a title sells in 13 Amazon Kindle stores, and customers in a selected territory with no store of its own buy from Amazon.com. Paperback: 14 Amazon marketplaces. Hardcover: the same, except Amazon.co.jp and Amazon.com.au. Amazon.com.br, Amazon.in and Amazon.com.mx do not sell KDP print books. Print in the EU and UK is all-or-none: to sell in any one of those countries the book must be eligible in all of them. Selecting the US, Canada or Mexico, KDP says, makes a print book “eligible for sale in all countries”. | Open to authors in the US, UK, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, France, Italy, Germany, Spain, the Netherlands and Belgium; print-on-demand runs in the continental United States and Hawaii |
| Terms | |
| Exclusivity | |
| Not requiredPublishing on KDP does not require exclusivity. Enrolling a title in KDP Select does: for the 90-day term Amazon holds the exclusive right to sell the digital edition, and you may not sell or license it in digital form in any territory where you hold rights. Enrolment renews automatically in further 90-day periods unless you opt out before renewal. Print is unaffected. Audio is affected in two cases. A Virtual Voice audiobook is enrolled automatically when its ebook is in KDP Select, and an enrolled audiobook must be exclusive to Audible for the enrolment period. An ACX audiobook joins only if you enrol it, and it must already be exclusive to Audible. | Not requiredThe help centre says plainly that B&N Press is non-exclusive and that a book already published elsewhere can be published here too, and the grant of rights in section 7 of the Author Membership Agreement is non-exclusive. The restriction sits on the identifier rather than the book: a print edition needs an ISBN that has never been submitted to any other retailer, bn.com included, so the same print ISBN cannot be on B&N Press and on a distributor that already feeds bn.com. |
| ISBN | |
| Free ISBN: YesYour own ISBN: YesA free ISBN is offered for paperback and hardcover only; Kindle ebooks do not need one. The free ISBN cannot be used with another publisher or printer, and the imprint is registered in Bowker as "Independently published". Supplying your own ISBN lets you register a custom imprint name and reuse the identifier on other platforms. | Free ISBN: YesYour own ISBN: YesPrint: B&N Press issues a free ISBN, registers it with Bowker’s Books In Print and shows “Barnes & Noble Press” as the publisher on the detail page. That ISBN is usable only on B&N Press for Barnes & Noble and bn.com, cannot be transferred, and is limited to five a week and ten a month. An ISBN you own is accepted only if it has never been submitted to any other retailer, bn.com included, and once used on B&N Press it cannot be used with another publisher. Ebooks: no ISBN is required — bn.com lists ebooks by EAN, and an ebook ISBN appears only in sales reporting. |
| Royalties | |
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| Fees | |
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| Payment schedule | |
| Monthly, approximately 60 days after the end of the month in which the sale was made (Terms s.5.4.2). Expanded Distribution takes longer, but KDP’s pages disagree on how much: its royalties estimator says 90 days, while the Expanded Distribution page says about 60 days after the end of the month in which distributors report the sale. Electronic funds transfer has no minimum. Cheque and wire payments wait until a marketplace’s balance reaches its threshold — $100 on Amazon.com, £100 on Amazon.co.uk, €100 in the EU stores — counted separately for each marketplace in its own currency, after tax withholding, and then paid 60 days after the end of the month the threshold is reached. On termination Amazon may hold all royalties for three months to cover refunds. | Monthly, about 30 days after the end of the month of sale, once ebook and print royalties together have accrued to the threshold — $25 in the current Royalty and Payment Terms and help centre, which pay on the last Wednesday of the following month by electronic funds transfer. Section 6B of the Author Membership Agreement, last modified 30 April 2021, still states $10; the newer, more specific figure is recorded here. Since 2 March 2026 international authors are paid in US dollars. |
| Returns | |
| Royalties are paid net of refunds (Terms s.5.4.1), and sales reports calculate them on net units sold: units sold minus units refunded. If a customer is refunded after a royalty has been paid, Amazon may offset it against future royalties or require you to repay it (s.5.4.8). For print, a royalty is reported only when a copy ships to fill an order, so a copy returned in new condition and resold by Amazon earns no new royalty. KDP’s pages do not say whether bookshops can return copies ordered through Expanded Distribution. | Section 6B allows Barnes & Noble to offset a royalty already paid against future royalties if the sale is later refunded or returned, or to require repayment, and to withhold all royalties for three months after termination to cover such offsets. |
| Rights & privacy | |
| Overall posture | |
| Mixed | Mixed |
| AI training on your work | |
| Terms are silent or ambiguous | Terms are silent or ambiguous |
| Content licence | |
| Sublicensable to third parties | Perpetual |
| Deletion | |
| Not available | Available |
| Export | |
| Partial | Weak |
The full records, with sources, facts and change history: Amazon KDP and Barnes & Noble Press.