Shared KDP accounts

[notjohn]

People often ask if someone else (a formatter, for example) can upload books for them, or can otherwise share some of the functions of the KDP platform, and the answer is always No.

But Draft2Digital has done it! I got this email yesterday: "D2D Account Sharing will allow you to give select users limited access to your Draft2Digital Account. So if you have a virtual assistant (VA), or have a family member or friend who manages your books on your behalf, you can now grant them access to do what you need!"

Note that it is possible to let D2D manage your books on the KDP platform. You take a slight hit in royalty (about 60 percent instead of a nominal 70) but for some people that might well be worth it, just as I am willing to give up 10 percent to avoid the hassle of managing my books on Apple, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and other stores.

Apologies if this has been posted before. Merry Christmas! -- NJ

[KBoards.com]

[Shane Lochlann Black]

I've often wondered if the more experienced authors among us might one day produce a training program and perhaps even a certification program for a digital publishing assistant role.

I could likely offer quite a bit of advice on subjects like merchandising, licensing, trailers and cross-promoting characters in other markets.  I'm sure all of us could come up with a standard set of tasks such an assistant could be trained for, and I'm firmly convinced once trained and certified they would easily be worth $50 to $100 an hour.  Just coordinating covers, blurbs, multiple-site publishing, ads, keywords, edits, formatting and all those administrative tasks would dramatically improve the life of even moderately active authors.  It would revolutionize the business for those of us who are full time. 

How many folks out there do you suppose would line up for a job like that? 

[Cecelia]

What if two authors collaborate and the book is genuinely by both x and y? It happens!

[notjohn]

Well, the D2D setup at least allows two authors to collaborate on the same site. The responsibility for accepting the money, distributing a fair share to the collaborator, and sending him or her and the IRS a 1099-MISC in January still fall upon the actually owner of the publishing account.

[KBoards.com]