Methods and systems for receiving and distributing annotations of a digital work include receiving an annotation of the digital work, storing the annotation, and providing the annotation to a user. The user may be required to submit a valid authorization credential for the annotation. Annotations may be textual or graphical, and may be associated with particular content in a digital work. Indicators may be displayed to identify content in the digital work for which annotations are available. A user may exchange compensation or perform a specified action for access to an annotation. Some or all of the compensation received for an annotation may be distributed to the author of the annotation. Multiple annotations may be listed in an order based a criterion, such as ranking, price, or date of receipt. Users that purchase a digital work may automatically receive an authorization credential to receive annotations of the digital work.