For-profit social enterprise versus non-profit?

Hello!

So, I am in the ground phase of starting a business and I am really struggling with how I should structure it. Here's a little info on my idea: I am an independent author and I use a self-publishing (vanity press style) company to publish my work. I want to utilize a portion of profits from book sales to be gifted to individuals in need. Where I'm struggling is deciding whether this should be structured as a cross-compensation social enterprise or as a non-profit.

Some questions and concerns I keep throwing around are:

- If social enterprise - could my for-profit business be my books/merchandise? Might this pose a legal issue with the publishing company?
- If social enterprise - Could I legally make a business out of my books/merchandise and not owe anything to the publishing company?
- If social enterprise - Can I even legally produce merchandise directly derived from my books?
- If I did a separate non-profit, would I then take a cut of profits from book/merchandise sales and donate the rest to my non-profit? I don't even know if that is ethical? I can't afford to not take any profit/salary for myself from the sales of my book!
- If I did a separate non-profit entity, can the non-profit legally be developed based off of one of my books and have no financial or other business-related responsibility to the publishing company?

I can't seem to be able to focus in on this as there are multiple aspects to consider with the added entity of the publishing company in the mix.

Any thoughts/experience would be greatly appreciated!!

Thank you!!