Distribution: Draft2Digital

The next place I go to is Draft2Digital.1 This one just does distribution without a storefront, but it has some pretty fantastic extras. Which we will get into. But first, guess what I have to do again!

File preparation

Because of the way Draft2Digital does it’s thing, I opt to remove the front and back matter from my books. No title page, and no links at the back! It’s yet another file, but removing things is pretty quick, and then I save my doc.

Once that’s done, I get to upload the file and use the Draft2Digital uploader. And then their builder. See, Draft2Digital has probably the best of all the ebook conversion options of all of them, including the ability to pick front and back matter pages, and apply a few preset styles to your book so it looks a little nicer.

Among their front and back matter, they also give you the option to add previews for other books, and these Books2Read links to your books that I will get into a little later. Better, if you use their front and back matter options, they will update the links and content for you2 without you having to redo your documents all over again.

Distribution

Besides Amazon and Kobo, I distribute to all of their options because I like the ePubs that they generate. They don’t have that many options right now, but they have been adding, however slowly, more outlets. And they will let you present your opt ins and outs.

The UI

The UI is nothing special, which is pretty much exactly what you want with these things, honestly.

Their statistics are useless, however. They do give you the amount they owe you and that is always nice. On the other hand, you might as well download the spreadsheets because the graphs and charts that they show you on the site aren’t very flexible. I just want to know what book sold to what outlet when, guys. And give me a few more time ranges than Last Month.

Payment

Draft2Digital is nice in that it gives you both the Paypal option and the direct deposit one. They take 10% of the royalties, if I remember right, and you get the rest. Other than that, there’s not a heck of a lot to say. They pay regularly when they get paid from their outlets and… that’s it.

The Extras

So besides what I’ve already mentioned with the conversion, they also have this Books2Read thing. Which, the UI on it is not fantastic3 it provides this nice extra feature or giving any reader who clicks the link the option to choose their retailer and send you right to the book page. It doesn’t even limit it to just the ones you’ve used them for! It lists my Amazon and Kobo links on there as well as several options that Draft2Digital doesn’t even have.

They also have an option you can add in the back matter to allow readers to sign up for alerts about new books. Which is always a nice addition.

Sales

The sales aren’t fantastic through Draft2Digital, though it’s might be because of how I tend to use the epub files.4 I mostly get sales through Barnes & Noble and Tolino. Other than that, I haven’t seen much from the other outlets.

Next week, one last distributor!

1. Help me out, sign up with that link! [↩]
2. Like, add the link to your new book as soon as you finish uploading it to every book in your catalog [↩]
3. Come on, bit of a bigger cover, put the title next to it and add in the description. It’s not that hard to make this better. [↩]
4. More on that coming [↩]