draft2digital - anyone used it yet?

4289 Views 20 Replies 9 Participants Last post by Aaron Pogue, Jan 3, 2013

Nicole5102

Discussion Starter · Dec 22, 2012

A friend sent me a link to a new site https://www.draft2digital.com/

They do all your formatting and submit your book to all vendors.
They take a percentage of any sales you make, otherwise no charge.

Just wondering if anyone has used it yet.

1 - 20 of 21 Posts

Carradee

· #2 · Dec 22, 2012

I've not, but their percentage and the way they talk about it make me suspect they might be an agent/agency that's pushing out. They also seem to only publish to the vendors that are (mostly) easiest for an author to enter, herself, so I'm not impressed.

*shrug* That's me, though.

Aaron Pogue

· #3 · Dec 23, 2012

Actually, Draft2Digital isn't any kind of agency. It's a direct competitor to Smashwords with a focus on higher-quality formatting.

That's also where the pricing came from--it's identical to Smashwords.

Full disclosure (in case it wasn't obvious), I work with D2D. I was the author who wanted a better option than Smashwords and found the programmers to make it.

Carradee

· #4 · Dec 28, 2012

Aaron Pogue said:
Actually, Draft2Digital isn't any kind of agency. It's a direct competitor to Smashwords with a focus on higher-quality formatting.

That's also where the pricing came from--it's identical to Smashwords.

Full disclosure (in case it wasn't obvious), I work with D2D. I was the author who wanted a better option than Smashwords and found the programmers to make it.

Ah. Thanks for that clarification.

(And a verbiage quibble-it isn't identical to Smashwords. For example, you don't have all the same distribution partners, and your website designs differ.

)

AmsterdamAssassin

· #5 · Dec 28, 2012

Because D2D allows the uploading of epubs, I've decided to post my novels with them. Any problems I had were solved promptly and professionally by Kris. I uploaded only epubs and I do my own distribution to Kobo, iTunes and Amazon, so D2D handles the distributors that don't allow non-US residents to upload their work, like BN. Based on the contact up till now they're thoroughly professional, so I have a good feeling about them.

Amanda Brice

· #6 · Dec 28, 2012

Interesting.

Aaron, do authors have to provide their own ISBN? I do my own uploading to Amazon, B&N, and Kobo, but don't have a Mac so can't go direct to iTunes so I've been using Smashwords, but am always looking for alternatives.

Aaron Pogue

· #7 · Dec 28, 2012

Authors don't have to provide ISBNs. Draft2Digital doesn't provide them either, but that's primarily because iTunes doesn't require them anymore.

If I recall correctly, the only vendor still requiring them is Sony, and they have been extremely slow to respond. If Draft2Digital can ever get a distribution agreement with them, they'll probably start looking into ways to provide ISBNs as quickly as possible.

Pelenor

· #8 · Dec 29, 2012

Not to hijack the thread but are you certain that Itunes no longer requires an ISBN? From their Partner Programs site FAQ:

An ISBN (International Standard Book Number) is required if you have a paid book agreement for any book you are selling on the iBookstore.

It goes on to state that if you are offering it for free, then the book doesn't require one. Where does it mention no ISBN? And I visited your site, and it looks promising. I may have found my outlet for my upcoming publishing schedule!

Andrew Ashling

· #9 · Dec 29, 2012

Registering with D2D was easy.
Uploading took between 15 and 20 minutes tops.
The site is nice-looking, efficient, transparently organized, simple to navigate and use, and very responsive. Not to mention it feels rock-solid.
Congratulations.

Only when I tried to complete the payment form it transpired the site caters only to USA-citizens. Which was not mentioned anywhere before.
Wish I'd known that before going to the trouble.

Meanwhile I emailed them, and got a polite (and fast) email back that they didn't expect non-Americans to respond

, but that they "expect to offer full support."

So, this is a bit of a mixed bag for the majority of humanity. The site and the service are suprisingly professional. Just a bit USA-centric. ::)

::)

ETA:

Maybe I was being a tad unfair. It is possible other sites, like XinXii, are totally European-centric.

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Jnassise

· #10 · Dec 29, 2012

To answer the above question - I'm quite certain iTunes no longer requires an ISBN - I uploaded several new books without isbns to my account today.

I don't own a mac either. When I want to upload anything to my account, I use mac-in-a-cloud. Only costs a few bucks and comes preloaded with iTunes Producer to handle the whole process.

AmsterdamAssassin

· #11 · Dec 29, 2012

Andrew Ashling said:
Only when I tried to complete the payment form it transpired the site caters only to USA-citizens. Which was not mentioned anywhere before.
Wish I'd known that before going to the trouble.

I regard this as an experiment - what I did is I filled in the form, flubbing the postal code and the state [putting Armed Forces Europe]. I have an EIN, so that's not a problem.

I have emailed Kris at D2D to give him my correct postal code, etcetera, and informed him that he'd have to adjust to non-US publishers by asking them to arrange for an EIN [which can be done with a simple telephone call to Philadelphia] and send D2D a W-8BEN form, so they don't have to withold taxes.

Andrew Ashling

· #12 · Dec 29, 2012

AmsterdamAssassin said:
I regard this as an experiment - what I did is I filled in the form, flubbing the postal code and the state [putting Armed Forces Europe]. I have an EIN, so that's not a problem.

I have emailed Kris at D2D to give him my correct postal code, etcetera, and informed him that he'd have to adjust to non-US publishers by asking them to arrange for an EIN [which can be done with a simple telephone call to Philadelphia] and send D2D a W-8BEN form, so they don't have to withold taxes.

Yep. A simple phone call to Philadelphia…

Eh, no. Special requirements should be mentioned beforehand. I had no such troubles with Kobo (no simple phone call to Missisauga necessary) or ARe. Nor with Amazon for that matter: they leave it up to you whether they deduct the American taxes or whether you provide them with the necessary documents.

I mailed them about this problem and it seems they never thought they'd get "international" reactions when putting something on the Internet. ::)

::)

This is not what I call (and what they claim to be) a simple solution.

However, they seem very professional people. They responded very fast and they assured me they will try to repair this gaucherie as soon as possible.

Another problem is that you can't set a book free, not even for those vendors, like Kobo, that allow it. I think Apple does as well. Don't know about B&N.
For me, this could be a deal breaker.

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AmsterdamAssassin

· #13 · Dec 29, 2012

Andrew Ashling said:
Yep. A simple phone call to Philadelphia…

Eh, no. Special requirements should be mentioned beforehand. I had no such troubles with Kobo (no simple phone call to Missisauga necessary) or ARe. Nor with Amazon for that matter: they leave it up to you whether they deduct the American taxes or whether you provide them with the necessary documents.

However, they seem very professional people. They responded very fast and they assured me they will try to repair this gaucherie as soon as possible.

Another problem is that you can't set a book free, not even for those vendors, like Kobo, that allow it. I think Apple does as well. Don't know about B&N.
For me, this could be a deal breaker.

Andrew, I assume you, as a non-US resident, have published e-books in the US [through Amazon, etcetera]. Amazon will keep 30 percent of your 70% royalties for tax purposes. However, most European countries have tax treaties with the US, which means that you can send Amazon a W-8BEN in compliance with witholding taxes, so Amazon knows they are not supposed to withold taxes on your behalf, since you don't need to pay taxes in the US as a non-US resident. BUT to fill in the W-8BEN, you need an ITIN or an EIN. The ITIN is hard to get, but the EIN is easy to get with a five minute phone call to Philadelphia.

Since I know that I'm dealing with worldwide publishing, I got an EIN, I got a Publisher ISBN prefex and all my epubs have ISBNs. Sure, some retailers don't need them, but I have them for those who need them. And I can send a W-8BEN to any retailer who thinks they can withold taxes. That's what it means to be a self-publisher.
Now, I understand that Draft2Digital hasn't fully worked out how to deal with non-US self-publishers [their form would work perfect for a US-resident, with a SSN], but I also understand that they are in the Beta stage, so they are still experimenting how to do thing 'right'.

Which is why I publish Reprobate for BN/Nook through D2D, both because I cannot publish directly through BN and because I don't mind helping D2D working the bugs out of their system.

You can always wait until they have worked out the bugs before you publish with them.

As to free downloads from Kobo and iTunes - that's why I publish to Kobo and iTunes directly, not through Smashwords or XinXii or D2D. I only go through D2D for retailers I cannot publish directly.

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Andrew Ashling

· #14 · Dec 29, 2012

AmsterdamAssassin said:
Andrew, I assume you, as a non-US resident, have published e-books in the US [through Amazon, etcetera]. Amazon will keep 30 percent of your 70% royalties for tax purposes. However, most European countries have tax treaties with the US, which means that you can send Amazon a W-8BEN in compliance with witholding taxes, so Amazon knows they are not supposed to withold taxes on your behalf, since you don't need to pay taxes in the US as a non-US resident. BUT to fill in the W-8BEN, you need an ITIN or an EIN. The ITIN is hard to get, but the EIN is easy to get with a five minute phone call to Philadelphia.

Since I know that I'm dealing with worldwide publishing, I got an EIN, I got a Publisher ISBN prefex and all my epubs have ISBNs. Sure, some retailers don't need them, but I have them for those who need them. And I can send a W-8BEN to any retailer who thinks they can withold taxes. That's what it means to be a self-publisher.
Now, I understand that Draft2Digital hasn't fully worked out how to deal with non-US self-publishers [their form would work perfect for a US-resident, with a SSN], but I also understand that they are in the Beta stage, so they are still experimenting how to do thing 'right'.

Which is why I publish Reprobate for BN/Nook through D2D, both because I cannot publish directly through BN and because I don't mind helping D2D working the bugs out of their system.

You can always wait until they have worked out the bugs before you publish with them.

As to free downloads from Kobo and iTunes - that's why I publish to Kobo and iTunes directly, not through Smashwords or XinXii or D2D. I only go through D2D for retailers I cannot publish directly.

I agree completely with you as far as the publishing process is concerned.

But that was not my point. Look at the screen shot: give us "basic information" and you could be "publishing in minutes," and we'll "handle the rest."

The first thing they should have mentioned is that this may be true, but only for US-citizens, and that the process is significantly more convoluted for the vast majority of humanity.

We all make our choices but we need the correct and complete information, and they didn't give it. I also said that I believe them when they say that they will try to find solutions, and I still think this is one of the easiest and most professional interfaces I have seen.

Meanwhile SW seems to be serious about direct uploading of epubs (I've submitted one of my books for testing), which would serve my purposes as well.

Amanda Brice

· #15 · Dec 30, 2012

You know what would be an awesome service for D2D (or some other aggregator) to provide? The ability to split payments among multiple co-authors. I have a few anthology projects that are basically at a standstill because nobody wants to take on the role of designated uploader and then paying monthly royalties to the co-authors, with all the accounting and tax forms that will entail. I'd gladly give 15% (or some other fee) to an aggregator who would upload everywhere and then do that for me.

So if D2D is still in the beta testing phase and looking for input on ideas to make this the best service out there...that's my suggestion.

Aaron Pogue

· #16 · Dec 30, 2012

Amanda Brice said:
So if D2D is still in the beta testing phase and looking for input on ideas to make this the best service out there...that's my suggestion.

Even after the beta, we intend to keep Draft2Digital in active development for a long time. We're looking forward to robust CreateSpace support, author website integration, sales portals, and lots more.

Support for multiple authors per account is already on the wishlist. Multiple payees per project...that's more complicated, but it should be doable. I'm their consultant for user experience, so I'll be sure to pass this one along.

AmsterdamAssassin

· #17 · Dec 30, 2012

Andrew Ashling said:
But that was not my point. Look at the screen shot: give us "basic information" and you could be "publishing in minutes," and we'll "handle the rest."

The first thing they should have mentioned is that this may be true, but only for US-citizens, and that the process is significantly more convoluted for the vast majority of humanity.

You're right, but I think that's part of the 'BETA' version of a site just starting up. And they're receptive to critique, so I assume that your criticism will be considered when they draw up new text for those forms.

Amanda Brice

· #18 · Dec 30, 2012

Awesome, Aaron. Thanks! I know I'm not the only one who'd love a service like that.

RuthNestvold

· #19 · Dec 30, 2012

This looks like a great alternative to Smashwords for getting into the iTunes store. Thanks for pointing this out!

Carradee

· #20 · Jan 3, 2013

Amanda Brice said:
You know what would be an awesome service for D2D (or some other aggregator) to provide? The ability to split payments among multiple co-authors. I have a few anthology projects that are basically at a standstill because nobody wants to take on the role of designated uploader and then paying monthly royalties to the co-authors, with all the accounting and tax forms that will entail. I'd gladly give 15% (or some other fee) to an aggregator who would upload everywhere and then do that for me.

So if D2D is still in the beta testing phase and looking for input on ideas to make this the best service out there...that's my suggestion.

Oh, my. If you find someone who does that, PM me, please. I'm in a similar boat.

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