Draft2Digital has recently announced a new fee set for new accounts and low-volume books. A number of independent authors have commented on this, varying from caution to outright displeasure. I wanted to outline why I will be remaining on Draft2Digital and monitoring how things go.
The Fees
In case you have not heard, D2D has decided to implement two new fees on users of the platform. The first is a one-off activation fee of $US20 levied on new accounts opened. If you already have an account, this fee does not apply to you. The second fee is an annual maintenance charge of $US12. This fee also does not apply to you unless your books make under $US100 in revenue in a given year. It is worth noting that the $US100 does not include the commission D2D take, so your books will need to make $US100 plus the commission paid to D2D and plus the commission of the vendors themselves.
Why have these fees been put introduced? Kris Austin explains that the annual fee for authors whose books do not contribute enough commission to D2D “helps offset a portion of the steadily rising costs we pay to maintain those accounts, including compliance, security, and infrastructure upkeep.” More indirectly, Austin also states “continuing to invest in our tools, maintaining strong relationships with retailers, and protecting the legitimacy of indie authors and the trust that readers place in indie books.”
Women’s Publishing Summit has also weighed in on some reasons for these new fees, and this has also been mentioned by other commentors. WPS puts it very simply: “bookspam.” With huge increases in the numbers of books being published, and a vast amount of them being AI puke, D2D’s decision is, in a way, damage control. While I would like to see D2D ban AI crap altogether, (see my article “Burned by the Machine” for more), WSP is clear that all indie authors have been impacted by the AI deluge, which has often seen one user opening several accounts to pump dozens of AI-generated books into the market. WSP’s article is worth viewing for a wider context.
Reactions?
As an eternally emerging author, with sales in the very low figures, I will be fronted with the annual maintenance fee. While that is disappointing, after some reflection, I have concluded that D2D is still the option I prefer to go with. Allow me to expand on this and put it into a bigger picture.
First, what does that $US12 get me? It gets me a broad distribution onto a tonne of partners. D2D partners include Kobo and the Kobo Plus scheme (one of my favourites), Smashwords, Fable, Overdrive, Amazon, and a bunch more of whom I have not always heard. If I dropped D2D and managed these myself, this would be a lot more work.
Other platforms that do a similar thing to D2D are something I need to look into more, but Ingram Spark and Lulu appear a little more expensive. I only use D2D for ebook distribution, handling print-on-demand through Amazon directly. The printing is what I need to research more, but Ingram Spark already has turned out to be more expensive than my current arrangement. At the time of writing, D2D gives me wide distribution, including to the platform I have had most traction on for NeoTokyo Dead: Smashwords.
Without D2D, you would need to handle all your distribution channels yourself and find a print-on-demand distribution as well. If this is something workable for you, then maybe the fee is excessive. There are plenty of channels out there for you to explore, like BookFunnel, and the above mentioned services. For myself, I will be staying with D2D and paying the fee.
Another point is especially for new and emerging authors, or those who are not so new and still emerging like myself. Imagine your books take a decade to break the $100 barrier and get you into the fees-free category. That would mean you have paid $120 in total to D2D. I am paying that annually just for my email provider. Compare D2D’s maintenance fee to some other services you might be paying for already:
X Premium: starts at $US32 per year, (up to $US395).
MeWe Premium: $US4.99 a month, (cheaper for annual billing).
Snapchat Plus: $US39.99 per year.
In the wider overview, the cost D2D wants to charge for maintenance of accounts that are not generating income for them is fairly reasonable. Of course, D2D, like so many other companies, has cited the ubiquitous “rising costs” mantra as part of their justification, which raises an important question. It is $12 a year this year, but what will it be next year and the year after? That all-to-common attempt at justification of “rising costs”, used and abused by a tonne of companies with no ethics at all, could be just another case of hiking the prices. That is something we will just need to wait and see. I would hope D2D keep in mind their market and avoid going down the path of so many greedy companies.
As I alluded to above, D2D could ban AI-generated material on the platform and help keep the costs down, but I imagine they would have a challenging time not only finding such material, but also effectively stopping the flood of AI excrement getting onto the platform in the first place. By charging an activation fee, and then an annual fee, both of which are not going to break the bank of most authors, D2D have an effective barrier to spammer scum who pump written dross out by the tonne.
I have only seen one platform, an indie music platform, where a such a complete ban on AI-generated material has been mostly effective, from all appearances. Ampwall has developed a tight community where the musicians are all fervent anti-AI luddites, and proudly so (as I am!). This is precisely where Bandcamp, who have recently banned all AI music, face a challenge. Not all musicians on Bandcamp are against AI-generated music, and a good many of them do not openly label their music as AI-generated. Faced with a similar challenge, a fee is a simple, possibly very effective, method of encouraging AI users to get the hell out of Dodge.
Conclusions
Whatever your response to Draft2Digital’s new fees, I would encourage some thought on the wider issues. If you are going to blame anyone for this, I would suggest AI-users and spammers are ones who should bear the brunt of your ire. In my opinion, the fee is helping the development and the quality of Draft2Digital to continue and improve. That is not a bad thing for all of us.
A Personal Note
On a more personal note, you might have see commentators who consider D2D’s move as a move against “low quality books,” without qualifying what they really mean by that. If you are like me, and wondered if your writing was “low quality,” may I offer you some encouragement? If you have written your books yourself, edited them yourself (or had another human do it for you), and you’ve put the hard yards into the research, writing, editing, covers and all that, you are on the right track.
I have read a few books by independent authors over the years, and they have all been pure human writers. My one published book (at the moment!) does not stack up too bad. In fact, I would say it is actually very good.
The marketing is hard. We all have to learn it, and it is something I am still learning. Keep going, don’t give up, and you will get there!
You can grab another of my story, NeoTokyo Dead, from all fantastic platforms!
It's not about the $12. D2D could've avoided much of the backlash if they'd applied the $12 fee equally across the board. Considering the way they worded their announcement, many low-earning authors are feeling hurt and discouraged since they've been lumped in with the AI sloppers and apparently aren't considered "genuine authors" in D2D's view.
I made less than a dollar on D2D in the last year (all from library borrows), and I'll have to pay this fee by credit card since my current account balance won't even cover the $12. Let's hope that the fee won't increase for a while...
Interesting perspective. I still think D2D is shooting themselves in the foot. And why would anyone pay extra for MeWe, Twitter/X, etc.? I sure don't. Also, my works are published through a small publisher. It's their account, so I'm assuming my books won't be impacted.