April 20, 2026
How many of you use Draft2Digital?
How will the new pricing structure affect you?
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the company, Draft2Digital provides tools and distribution methods to independent authors. It started business a little over a decade ago and has been expanding the services it offers since then. It is one of the companies I chose to go with when I began my journey as an author. At that time, it cost nothing to join. The only fee was the cut the company took out of each sale.
This past week, Draft2Digital announced major changes. First, there is an activation fee. (Previously, joining was free.) The changes also include a yearly fee if an author’s proceeds fall under $12 in the past year. If an author brings in over $100, that fee doesn’t apply.
How does it affect me?
Well, since I’ve been with them since the beginning of my publication efforts, I don’t have to worry about the activation fee. Without using that terminology, I believe they use it as a way to keep out the manuscripts produced by AI bots. It’s a goal I support. The announced activation fee is $20 and hopefully isn’t enough to discourage beginning writers. (In contrast, it used to cost $45 to upload a single manuscript to Ingram Spark for printing.)
The annual fee will make a minor difference to my budget. I don’t make enough money to meet the $100 target for free servicing of my account. My sales reach is tiny, but Draft2Digital gets me into various systems that offer digital access to libraries, as well as Apple. I’d hate to lose those channels of sales and access to readers.
I’ll have to give it time to see if the new policy works. There is so much competition in today’s book market that I’ll likely never know if it works to fight AI garbage. But it’s a start.
What do other authors think? Hear from a few by following the links below.
As always, until next time, please stay safe.
Goal update: I’m at 49,600 words. That’s after stripping several hundred from edits of early chapters. The tipping point is still eluding me. There’s four paths I can see, and I don’t know which to pick.
April 20, 2026
How many of you use Draft2Digital? How will the new pricing structure affect you?