Indie Publishing Distributors

[Jay Aitch]

Hey all,

Has anyone had experience with Draft2Digital as an ebook distributor? Or Smashwords?

Thanks

Jim

 

[Robinne Weiss]

I use both of them ... sort of shifting from Smashwords to D2D at the moment. @Paul Whybrow has more experience with D2D than I do. I've been pretty happy with both, in terms of where they've distributed books and how easy they are to use. I don't make many sales from them, though, because I focus my advertising on Amazon.

 

[CageSage]

I also use both. No complaints. There are little niggles, but nothing dramatic.
Is there a specific query or line of enquiry?

 

[Paul Whybrow]

A few months ago, I moved my 45 titles of short stories, novellas, poetry and song lyrics from Smashwords and Amazon to Draft2Digital. I was impressed by D2D's slickness, which made the other sites look dated.

Uploading a manuscript to D2D takes seconds, unlike Smashwords where you sometimes join a queue to go through their 'meatgrinder.' Put it this way, it took me longer to unpublish my eBook on Smashwords than it did to publish them on D2D. I can republish my titles on Smashwords, should I choose to, as they're still there, just not browsable. D2D distributes to Amazon's KDP, so my books reappeared there. It also distributes to eBook vendors that I've never even heard of!

One thing to bear in mind, if you're UK based, is completing a US tax exemption form, otherwise most of your earnings will be taken by the American IRS. This is easy to do on D2D and Smashwords via an online process, but from memory it was trickier with Amazon.

No digital publisher or aggregator has magic bullets that guarantee you'll hit lots of readers. It's crucial to take into account self-promotion, to get your name and sparkling personality out there. Readers of books are not just after a tale to wile away a few hours—they want access to you and your life as an author—hence, the importance of having a blog (with a newsletter, so you can tell subscribers about your latest book), a website and making social media posts that are linked to those sites.

This is what I've been implementing this year, playing catchup on what I should have done years ago. I'm not a happy bunny...perhaps the Foreign Legion would take me...or, I could become a monk!

 

[Jay Aitch]

Thank you Paul, Robinne and Sage. Much appreciated.

One more question. I was hoping to publish the same book for two different markets, i.e. age ranges. D2D states one only publish the same book once for one market, otherwise both will be removed. Has anyone else had a similar situation and found a work-around?

 

[CageSage]

Like a BISAC code, age ranges suitable for the book is one choice. It's either adult or not, and can't be split into two. There is no benefit to publishing the same book that way - even if you use a second ISBN (especially if it's not a different format). And readers always read out of the range, anyway. It's not something they see, just what's used to 'place' the book in the appropriate 'level'.
It's not a market or related to marketing, but a statement of suitability. Is it suitable for children? If yes, what age range? If no, it's an adult book. There is no crossover or doubling- up for that item in publishing, only the reader can choose to read 'out of scope' of the specified age-ranges. Unlike genre, which can have two or three settings (but always a main genre).
Double-publishing a book that isn't a different format is related to scamming, in the views of the aggregators, and they won't do it.

This isn't legal advice, or even publishing advice, but it's common knowledge. If you can find a book that has a particular BISCAC code (the one you use for your book/story) and publishes to more than one age-range, you'll be the only person in the world to find a needle in a haystack (and likely a scammer).
Maybe the question should be: What is the right audience for this story? Who represents this audience? Did I aim it at that audience, specifically?

Just an opinion, but it's worth checking out the rules for BISAC as well, and seeing why they do it.

 

[Jay Aitch]

Like a BISAC code, age ranges suitable for the book is one choice. It's either adult or not, and can't be split into two. There is no benefit to publishing the same book that way - even if you use a second ISBN (especially if it's not a different format). And readers always read out of the range, anyway. It's not something they see, just what's used to 'place' the book in the appropriate 'level'.
It's not a market or related to marketing, but a statement of suitability. Is it suitable for children? If yes, what age range? If no, it's an adult book. There is no crossover or doubling- up for that item in publishing, only the reader can choose to read 'out of scope' of the specified age-ranges. Unlike genre, which can have two or three settings (but always a main genre).
Double-publishing a book that isn't a different format is related to scamming, in the views of the aggregators, and they won't do it.

This isn't legal advice, or even publishing advice, but it's common knowledge. If you can find a book that has a particular BISCAC code (the one you use for your book/story) and publishes to more than one age-range, you'll be the only person in the world to find a needle in a haystack (and likely a scammer).
Maybe the question should be: What is the right audience for this story? Who represents this audience? Did I aim it at that audience, specifically?

Just an opinion, but it's worth checking out the rules for BISAC as well, and seeing why they do it.

I was thinking more of the Rowling model, whereby the HP books were latterly reprinted with both child-friendly and adult-friendly covers.

 

[CageSage]

Ah, the Rowling model. Probably a special case (but I doubt it in terms of age-range for each book). The early books were Middle Grade and went on to build up to YA. None are adult (that I recall). Of course, a lot of adults don't grow up and love reading kids books (raises hand).
I think the cover issues went from 'cheap, in case it doesn't do well' to 'better get some good ones out so it looks professional'. Covers don't represent an age group, although they should always be appropriate to the age-range of the publication.
The title of (at least one) was changed for the US market, too, but that was for another reason, and didn't affect/change the age-range.
For Rowling, it would be worth checking the ISBN numbers to check if the changes were major enough to merit a new ISBN and edition number. From there, research whether the age-range changed. there are too many different versions now, so I won't be doing that research.

 

[Robinne Weiss]

Changing a cover doesn't require changing the ISBN. However, you can't sell two of the same book (same ISBN) with different covers through the same outlet--there would be no way to differentiate the two.

I publish dyslexia-friendly editions of my books, which are the same story, same text, just a different font, paper colour, and slightly different cover. They require a different ISBN (but show up in the same searches--just a different edition of the original book).

I know some authors create YA and Adult versions of their books--with the 'nasty' bits removed for YA, I gather. These would be published with different ISBNs and presumably different covers, so readers could tell which they were getting.

 

[Taylor W. S.]

Hey all,

Has anyone had experience with Draft2Digital as an ebook distributor? Or Smashwords?

Thanks

Jim

I had a run-in with them a while back, they are rather pedantic, they refused to distribute one of my books because B & N would not take books with double author names on the cover and when I uploaded the revised cover they said they didn't like it. I dropped them when they told me they didn't want paperbacks.
I went to Xinxii, a German-based distributor. Out of the 46 books, I uploaded I have 46 (coincidence) sales, mostly 'The Borg', a spin-off short story from Star Trek. The readers are either English-speaking Germans or... who knows, its the EU community.
A tip on writing. Go watch the Ray Bradbury Youtube clip on writing, I did.