Expanding my Authoring Empire (And some thoughts on Draft2Digital)

I’m always looking for ways to increase my reach as an author, whether it’s trying new things on social media or adding my books to new platforms. It takes work, but it’s totally worth it when someone asks if they kind find my book at a specific place or retailer, and I can say with confidence, “Yes!”

Earlier this year, I made a Draft2Digital (D2D) account for the first time for the purpose of the Together is a Distant Star Anthology. (D2D offers a royalty splitting option for collaborative projects, which makes it pretty nice. No other platform offers that.)

While I’d heard of D2D before, I never bothered selling through them because I sell direct through all the major ebook retailers and I have paperbacks and hardcovers printed through Amazon’s KDP, Barnes & Noble Press, and IngramSpark. I didn’t think D2D would have anything new to offer.

And I was wrong.

So, in March of this year, I added all of my ebooks to D2D’s system to capture the digital retailers and library systems all of the other vendors don’t cover.

What this means for readers

All of my novels are now available on Fable, Bookshop.org, Vivlio, Smashwords, and Thalia. Bookshop.Org doesn’t accept short stories, so unfortunately, Survivor isn’t available there.

All of my novels are also available on the subscription service Everand (with the exception of Survivor because it’s too short.)

Finally—and this is the part I’m most excited about—my full-length books can be sourced to libraries through both BorrowBox and Hoopla too. (Previously, they were only available through Overdrive which runs through Kobo.) So if you want to check out one of my ebooks from your library, all you need to do is request they carry the title.

While managing so many retailers can be a lot to handle, I think it’s worth it. I want them to be accessible to as many readers as possible, so I keep expanding over time.

The D2D experience so far

It was only about 3 weeks after I uploaded all of my ebooks that D2D announced they were going to start implementing an annual fee to use their distribution network. The fee is waived if the publisher sells $100 USD through them in a calendar year, which isn’t insurmountable… But since I had no data on how well things would sell through those newer channels, it made me uneasy. But the annual fee is only $12.99, and I can cover that through royalties elsewhere if need be.

What I didn’t realize is the publisher of a book with royalty splitting gets the full royalty amount put towards that fee (even if their individual split is only a tiny portion of the total.) For instance, my split for Together is a Distant Star is only 8.3% of the net royalty of $3.10 per sale (so my share is about 26 cents.) But D2D is applying the full $3.10 per sale toward that annual fee. And that makes it much easier to hit that $100 minimum.

One important note: D2D does not distribute ebooks to Amazon, so that piece was set up separately for the anthology.

So far, I haven’t had any sales on the new platforms, but I’m participating in my first Smashwords sale this month. Exile, The Moon’s Eye, Serpentus, and Wraith and the Revolution are all discounted for the month of July as part of the Smashwords Summer/Winter sale. We’ll see how it goes.

I was considering adding my paperbacks to D2D, but after talking with their customer support, that’s a no-go. They wanted me to delist my books from Barnes & Noble to use their system, which would then relist them… But D2D takes a pretty hefty percentage of the barely $3 I get by going direct through Barnes & Noble (for some of my books, I would only be making 36 cents at their current retail price if I went through D2D.)

So, I’ll stick with going direct for paperbacks. (After comparing D2D’s rates with IngramSpark’s, Ingram is the better option too. Not as good as selling direct with the retailer, but it’s still much better. Ingram also has a larger distribution network. The downside is they don’t offer that royalty splitting option.)

My final thoughts on D2D

For ebooks and collaborations like the anthology, it’s a great option, provided you’re willing to either 1) sell through Amazon separately or 2) forgo selling there at all. (As much as I dislike some of Amazon’s policies, it is still a huge platform for books, and I can’t imagine not selling there.)

D2D is the only place I can list to Bookshop.Org, Fable, Everand, Vivlio, Thalia and Smashwords. It also gives the option to source to BorrowBox and Hoopla for libraries. I think listing ebooks there is worth it for that reason alone.

But for paperbacks? Unless it’s an anthology project or collaboration, you’re better off going with IngramSpark and/or direct with Amazon KDP and Barnes & Noble Press.