As someone who has been recommending Draft2Digital here, I’m sad to say I’m no longer publishing on Draft2Digital.

What is it that got me to use Draft2Digital in the first place?

Is it because of how easy it is to upload books to Draft2Digital?

Or is it because I have no patience for Smashwords’ strict and thorough formatting that makes Draft2Digital a breath of fresh air to me?

Believe it or not, it’s none of those.

My only reason to use Draft2Digital was their acquisition of Smashwords.

It was only when they migrated my Smashwords account to Draft2Digital that made me use it for distribution to other retailers besides Amazon.

Even if they don’t acquire Smashwords, I will still use Draft2Digital for the library pay-per-checkout feature.

My time with Draft2Digital wasn’t as long as my time with Smashwords.

But it’s still sad that I have to say goodbye to Draft2Digital despite my brief time with them.

What got me to stop publishing on Draft2Digital

It’s not that hard to guess my reason for not publishing on Draft2Digital anymore.

The $12 annual fee that I have to pay because I’m making less than $100 in sales throughout the year?

That doesn’t bode well with me, not because I was stingy with money.

If anything, it doesn’t really make much sense that I have to pay for something that doesn’t make me truckloads of money.

It’s fine if they don’t take any percentage of my sales.

But if I remember the terms correctly, they will still take a certain percentage of sales on top of that $12 annual fee you have to pay.

Don’t want them to charge you $12?

Well, just generate sales of more than $100, duh.

It’s already bad enough that they will charge me $12 annually.

And now they also take another percentage of the sales generated, which is already puny to begin with.

Not going to lie, it was frustrating that they will start charging me moving forward.

Thus, my reason for leaving Draft2Digital for good.

But I’m more frustrated by the fact that all the time I spend uploading all the new editions of the Trigger Locked series, only to call it quits months later.

If only I had known about it soon enough.

The alternative to Draft2Digital for wide distributions

If you’re like me, who decided to leave Draft2Digital, you must be wondering if you can do the same thing somewhere else, but minus the frustrating fees.

Well, the good news is Draft2Digital isn’t the only platform that offers wide distribution for ebooks and print books.

The caveat?

They’re not any better than Draft2Digital based on these available options.

Publishing your books on PublishDrive

PublishDrive comes to mind when it comes to the alternative to Draft2Digital.

But unlike Draft2Digital, where they only made the switch recently, PublishDrive, on the one hand, already opted for the subscription model from the very beginning.

As expected, they also offer a free plan if you’re thinking about giving PublishDrive a try.

But it won’t do much for you, considering that the free plan only allows you to upload one book and offers up to 3 distribution channels.

If you have more than one book and you want to distribute them to as many places as possible, like you would with Draft2Digital, your only option is to upgrade to their paid plan.

I was lucky that I managed to grandfather their free plan, which allows unlimited book uploads and offers 27 distribution channels.

Now that I no longer use Draft2Digital, and PublishDrive also distributes to the same retailers as Draft2Digital, PublishDrive is what I will use moving forward.

Publishing your books on Lulu

Just like PublishDrive, you will still need to pay if you want to distribute your books through Lulu.

But unlike PublishDrive, where it’s a recurring fee, Lulu opts for a one-time fee per format instead.

That means if you’d like to use Lulu to distribute your books, you will have to pay a one-time fee of $4.99 to distribute your ebook and another $4.99 for print books.

While Lulu does say that they distribute books to more than 40,000 retailers, I’m guessing that only applies to print books.

As far as the ebook distribution is concerned, they will probably distribute to the major ones.

But hey, I could be wrong about that.

For all we know, those 40,000 retailers may have covered ebook retailers that are available on Draft2Digital and PublishDrive combined.

I won’t be using Lulu for the ebook distribution since PublishDrive can do just that.

But I will use Lulu for the print book distributions, though.

I’ve already had my books available for Lulu Direct.

So, I’m only one step closer to using Lulu’s global distribution.

Going directly with these retailers

Yup, it’s still possible to go direct with retailers if you don’t want to pay a dime to these platforms.

You’ve already gone direct with Amazon and Google Play Books, anyway.

Adding another one, two, or perhaps three retailers may not be such a big deal for you.

The only downside is that it will take a huge chunk of your time trying to maintain your presence on these platforms.

Thankfully, there’s Claude Cowork to the rescue.

But if you don’t intend to use AI, then be prepared to spend the time uploading your books to these retailers separately.

Should new authors use Draft2Digital for wide distribution?

If you’re a new author, you probably do have $20 to spare.

And there’s a big chance you have no issues with Draft2Digital charging you $12 annually when you’re not making that many sales on these retailers.

So, should you sign up with Draft2Digital if you have the means to pay for these fees?

I say hold your horses.

You’re better off going directly with these retailers and seeing if your books are selling on these retailers.

It was only when your book was selling on these retailers that you could consider signing up with Draft2Digital.

Yes, it can take a huge chunk of your time to set up the account and upload your book to these retailers.

But at the very least, it helps you to see if your book is making sales on any of these retailers and save that $20 for something else.

Will I ever come back to using Draft2Digital someday?

Well, you’ll never know.

But certainly not for the time being, since I’ve already delisted all of my books on Draft2Digital.

For now, I’m pretty much satisfied with my plan to use PublishDrive for ebook distribution and Lulu for the print book distribution.

Unless there’s something better coming my way, this will be my current arrangement for now.