Short Stories in KU as well as elsewhere: Breach of exclusivity?

[Lysmata Debelius]

I've had a look at the KU exclusivity terms and I'm still not sure of the answer to this question:

Let's say there are two anthologies of short stories. "My" anthology, which is a collection of stories I wrote. The other one is a "group" anthology, a collection of stories by lots of different writers. One of my stories appears in both these anthologies. In other words, these are different books, with different content, except for that one story by me, that appears in both.

Let's say I publish my anthology, of all my stories, on KU, and the group shares their group anthology through bookfunnel but doesn't publish it anywhere else.
Is the fact that my short story appears in both the KU version, and the group version that's available in bookfunnel, a breach of KU exclusivity?

The article linked above says that as long as the content available elsewhere is not more than 10%, all is fine, which makes it possible to share samples of exclusive books. But is that 10% of the * total book * that's in KU (the one which has all my stories) ? Or 10% of that one story that's common to both these anthologies?

[TimothyEllis]

Let's say I publish my anthology, of all my stories, on KU, and the group shares their group anthology through bookfunnel but doesn't publish it anywhere else.
Is the fact that my short story appears in both the KU version, and the group version that's available in bookfunnel, a breach of KU exclusivity?

Yes. Clear breach of KU rules. As far as I can see anyway.

I'm in an anthology at the moment, and waiting for it to come out of KU, in order to release my version.

The whole 10% rule appears to be a smoke screen whereby some people can claim they're within the rules, when they're not.

Anthologies need KU spelt out in the contract. Either the book is going in, and so no part of it can go outside Amazon, or it's not, and no part can be placed in KU. The contract should be very clear on this.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Thanks Timothy, that's what I thought.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Anthologies need KU spelt out in the contract. Either the book is going in, and so no part of it can go outside Amazon, or it's not, and no part can be placed in KU. The contract should be very clear on this.

OK here's a related question.
Why would this issue with KU need to be spelled out in the contract for the anthology? Assuming that the anthology is not in KU, and not published on Amazon. (The anthology in my case is only going to get distributed via bookfunnel). Why would there have to be something in the anthology contract specifying that I agree not to publish the story in KU? If I sign a contract that gives a publisher first rights, or whatever rights, doesn't that in itself imply that I can't then go give somebody else first- or non-exclusive rights either, whether to KU or anywhere else - does it need to be spelled out more than just "I agree to give exclusive rights"?  The person who'd get into trouble if I broke my KU exclusivity is me, surely, not whoever published the anthology? Or am I wrong about that?

[TimothyEllis]

OK here's a related question.
Why would this issue with KU need to be spelled out in the contract for the anthology? Assuming that the anthology is not in KU, and not published on Amazon. (The anthology in my case is only going to get distributed via bookfunnel). Why would there have to be something in the anthology contract specifying that I agree not to publish the story in KU? If I sign a contract that gives a publisher first rights, or whatever rights, doesn't that in itself imply that I can't then go give somebody else first- or non-exclusive rights either, whether to KU or anywhere else - does it need to be spelled out more than just "I agree to give exclusive rights"?  The person who'd get into trouble if I broke my KU exclusivity is me, surely, not whoever published the anthology? Or am I wrong about that?

Turn it over the other way.

By an anthology contract specifically stating what each author can and cannot do, you avoid that whole question. There are no assumptions, or possible misunderstandings. Each author knows.

Anywhere the word 'assume' crops up means the contract is too vague. Which also implies the person doing the anthology hasn't thought things out properly.

One should not assume anything where a contract is concerned. Besides, how often would an anthology not be on Amazon, even if not in KU?

The problem is not so much who gets in trouble, but that someone should know what will and will not get you into trouble. That's what contracts are for, spelling things out in minute detail, so there is no doubt.

But the bottom line here is, if you already gave exclusive rights to a story for an anthology, putting it in your own anthology as well breaks those rights, and no matter if in KU or not, you have broken a contract, and can be sued.  It's one reason why when you give those rights, the contract specifies the term the rights are given for, and how and when they return to the author. Until then, you cannot do anything with the story. KU is just a red herring in this instance.

If you sign a contract giving someone exclusive rights, then you should not even consider doing something else.

[Lysmata Debelius]

Just to clarify, I am definitely not considering publishing a story that I have given someone else exclusive rights to, in KU (or anywhere else).

I'm just trying to understand the ins and outs of the situation.

[She-la-te-da]

These things have to be spelled out in the contract because people will do stuff that gets whoever uploaded the anthology in trouble.

To be clear:  Nothing that's in KU can be anywhere else, for any reason. The sole exception is if you have a short in KU, you can make your own collection (not anthology, that's multiple authors) and have it either in KU or exclusive to Amazon. My advice to people to is forget about that 10% rule, because trying to use it to get around KU rules is going to bite them in the butt. Especially with shorts, collections or anthologies.

[RPatton]

Total digression, but...

I also thought Amazon came down on anthologies and stated that if a book is in a multi-author anthology and available in KU, it can't be put into KDP-Select on its own by an author.

[TimothyEllis]

Total digression, but...

I also thought Amazon came down on anthologies and stated that if a book is in a multi-author anthology and available in KU, it can't be put into KDP-Select on its own by an author.

I haven't heard that, but the anthology I'm in at the moment more or less said that in the contract. When it comes out of KU, the anthology will be removed from KDP completely, so author versions of each story can replace it.