Draft2Digital Review Is it Worth It (TESTED FOR 2018)

If you’re a writer, it’s likely one of the last things you want to deal with is the nuts and bolts of getting your book published. Truth be told, most writers prefer not to deal with formatting their manuscript. The frustration that comes with formatting page numbers, footers, and other â€Å"style† elements critical for publication can be overwhelming. Relinquishing final responsibility for formatting to a publisher holds appeal for many writers. This Draft2Digital review is an objective look at this aggregator that offers conversion and distribution services designed to make self-publishing easier for writers. Until recently, traditional publishers dominated the market. This let writers do the writing and publishers do the publishing. But the publishing world has changed tremendously. Increased access to ever expanding technology makes self-publishing easier and more feasible. But still not every writer wants to learn these new skills. However, until now choices were limited to traditional publishing, tolerating formatting frustrations, or outsourcing to an individual or service. Many writers prefer to focus on the craft of writing but yet don’t want to give up rights and royalties required by some publishers and other publishing services. Draft2Digital offers an easier way to self-publish and distribute without the â€Å"catch-22† of previous options. Benefits of Draft2Digital include: Stay in the Know and Maintain Control Over Your Work: No up front cost to you the writer; D2D fee comes out of sales only Authors maintain 100% of rights to their work Available even if you’ve already published through another distributor End result is an .epub file that you can download as mobi for Kindle or use with another distributer if desired. Automatically assigned FREE ISBN or provide your own Set your own list price or offer it for free Change pricing at any time through the portal and it is automatically updated with all vendors. Access to daily reports and dynamic sales charts on sales from all vendors. Easy and Convenient: No style guide or any formatting requirements Easy to user interface for making changes Don’t spend time or energy on table of contents or page breaks between chapters, teaser pages or even about the author pages. Get started with a document in .doc, RTF, docx or other Word compatible format No need to do title page or copyright pages One easy to manage dashboard to track everything including turning sales channels on or off with just the click of a button. Pre-order setups are available for popular sales channels with option for with and without assets so you can list for pre-order while you complete your book. Option for printed paperback books via Draft2Digital’s conversion service. Royalty payments (85% of NET) sent from 30-90 days after sales Low 10% fee comes out of royalties not your pocket Payment through several services including monthly via paypal. What You Need to Do: WRITE and EDIT your book. Signal chapter breaks with something of your choosing. You can center them, mark them in bold, use a larger font or a heading style if you choose. If you have cover art in JPEG format, just upload it in any tall rectangle shape. Preferred size is 16002400 but Draft2Digital will resize if needed. OR skip steps 2 3 and upload your own professionally formatted .epub file for distribution. Getting started with Draft2Digital involves just those few steps. Upload your book, complete the remaining steps to choose the retailers you want to use, select the genre, and keywords for your new book, etc. Then preview your .epub file, approve it,   and sit back and wait. Soon you’ll begin to receive email notifications with links you can use to promote your book from each retailer where your book is live. Distribution Channels through Draft2Digital: Once your professional epub file is uploaded choose your vendors from among some of the biggest book sales channels including: Kobo Barnes Noble IBooks Inktera Scribd Playster Tolino 24Symbols AND yes even Amazon if you wish You can even request that Draft2Digital add a sales channel if it’s not on the list. Cons of self-publishing via Draft2Digital: There aren’t a lot of cons I found when self-publishing via Draft2Digital. The only negatives I found about this Oklahoma based company were a few sporadic comments from users indicating response time of customer service was poor. Keep in mind those comments were all nearly three years old. One user indicated he’d prefer to see more transparency from D2D on the deals it has with each retailer but still admitted D2D offers higher royalties than other companies. D2D doesn’t offer additional in-house services such as cover design, editing, and marketing. This can be a con for folks looking to outsource these services but it also means you won’t get those pushy sales calls trying to upsell for cash out of your pocket. And D2D does provide a verified list of professionals offering services for those that wish to outsource. Overall Impression of Draft2Digital: If you haven’t considered Draft2Digital for your self-publishing needs, I’d definitely recommend you check it out. It’s the closest thing I’ve found to Pronoun which recently announced it is closing down, to the chagrin of many satisfied authors. Keep in mind I haven’t used the D2D service myself but I did thoroughly research the company website, comments from other reviewers, and from those that used the service. Overall, my opinion is that like Smashwords, Draft2Digital truly appears to be a distribution and publishing service that supports its writers and desires to build mutually beneficial partnerships. It offers quality services, with no upfront cost and without writers having to give up rights or a huge percentage of royalties. One of the best options in publishing is Draft2Digital, in my opinion. I’ll definitely consider it for my self-publishing needs in the future.