After a decade of publishing through Amazon’s paperback and digital platforms, I made the switch to Draft2Digital a little over a year ago. I’ve written here about my early experiences and wanted to provide an update.
Back then, I published two new books — a novella and a short story collection. After I got those books up and out there, I decided to republish my earlier efforts as well. So, now I have five books published through D2D.
As I’ve written before, if for no other reason than that my books are now more broadly available, I love the results with D2D. Last week, I spent a couple of days in Portland, Oregon. I made a stop at Powell’s Books and scanned the sections to see if any of my books were on the shelves. I even typed my name into their computer to make sure.
No, none of my books were in physical form in their bookstore, but all of them are available on Powell’s website. Just as they are at B & N, Books-A-Million, Walmart, the Harvard Book Store, Smashwords, and numerous other on-line bookselling platforms. I consider that a success.
Since I made the switch to D2D, I’ve sold 162 books via the platform. Not incredible numbers, but I have no idea whether the old way would have been any better. The last novel I published on Amazon sold fewer than 100 copies/downloads and no matter what kind of promo opportunities I try, nothing seems to change those numbers. So, in the light of minimal sales, why not go out as broadly as possible.
If you’re looking around for something other than Amazon and would like to see your books published more broadly, I encourage you to look into D2D or some of the other platforms that promise such distribution (IngramSpark, for instance). Something needs to be done to break the dominance of Amazon and these companies offer authors reasonable alternatives.
Writers Supporting Writers 
I have a love hate relationship with the mighty Zon! They are the biggest in the market but it is a small part of their empire. They took the initiative when barnes and noble faffed about too much. I had been with the ‘clunky’ smashwords for many years but D2D could see the issues and, over time, came up with a more user friendly version. Now D2D is taking over / merging with smash. I still have a bunch of ebooks on smash but mostly as freebies, just for old times sake. Doing the deed with D2D is so much more straight forward. My ebooks end up on Zon via D2D. Smash, and to a certain extent, D2D are big into throwing a ticket parade every time they sign up yet another obscure outlet for us, (yawn) and I look forward to never selling a book through any of them. Not sure why, but Apple readers lap up my stuff. I get some nice ratings from them, but I do wish more Apple readers wrote reviews, good bad or indifferent, as that’s great feedback for us.
Zon is a HUGE marketing machine and their dominance is assured. I just wish their robotic supercomputer wouldn’t keep messing with my prices or emailing me trying to sell me my own ebooks.
Zon, via their own createspace is a straightforward way to push out a paperback if required. To be fair, I had done with writing, preferring other creative pursuits, but I’m tapping out yet another book! At least Zon pops in a few £ straight into my bank account when due, and not paypal. It is what it is. It’s our choice where we publish or how we go about it. Just be happy we Indies have a platform.
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I think most writers have that same love-hate relationship with Amazon.
I put an earlier book through the Smashwords process and was so turned off by it, I swore I’d never go back. As you point out D2D (and IngramSpark) has figured out how to overcome the complexities of Smashwords.
Most of my sales are still on Amazon, but I’ve had a few on a number of the other platforms.
All of this remains a challenge for indie authors. There are pros and cons with each option.
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I’m hoping the D2D-Smashwords merge is complete before I publish another book. I gather the D2D process is easier, but I’d rather not set up a separate account with them just yet.
There doesn’t seem to be any sure-fire formula for selling books. Everyone has a different experience.
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D2D is definitely easier than Smashwords and everything you publish on D2D is available on Smashwords.
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I have a love hate relationship with the mighty Zon! They are the biggest in the market but it is a small part of their empire. They took the initiative when barnes and noble faffed about too much. I had been with the ‘clunky’ smashwords for many years but D2D could see the issues and, over time, came up with a more user friendly version. Now D2D is taking over / merging with smash. I still have a bunch of ebooks on smash but mostly as freebies, just for old times sake. Doing the deed with D2D is so much more straight forward. My ebooks end up on Zon via D2D. Smash, and to a certain extent, D2D are big into throwing a ticket parade every time they sign up yet another obscure outlet for us, (yawn) and I look forward to never selling a book through any of them. Not sure why, but Apple readers lap up my stuff. I get some nice ratings from them, but I do wish more Apple readers wrote reviews, good bad or indifferent, as that’s great feedback for us.
Zon is a HUGE marketing machine and their dominance is assured. I just wish their robotic supercomputer wouldn’t keep messing with my prices or emailing me trying to sell me my own ebooks.
Zon, via their own createspace is a straightforward way to push out a paperback if required. To be fair, I had done with writing, preferring other creative pursuits, but I’m tapping out yet another book! At least Zon pops in a few £ straight into my bank account when due, and not paypal. It is what it is. It’s our choice where we publish or how we go about it. Just be happy we Indies have a platform.
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I’m interested in the pricing of your book on the various. It seems to me that books available on Amazon but not published using Amazon, are much more expensive. I don’t know if that’s at the instance on the author or not. I did the opposite to you. After 5 years of publishing through a small publisher via Lulu.com, I’m now publishing directly via Amazon and I much prefer it.
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Amazon definitely increases the prices for my paperbacks and those prices are all over the place. It’s not anything I do.
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I went with Smashwords (ebooks) from day one in 2015 and distribute through them to Apple, B & N, and Kobo. I put my books on D2D just as placeholders pending the complete Smashwords-D2D merger, and have them available only in the European stores. I also sell on Amazon (ebooks and paper) and Google (ebooks and audiobooks) as well.
Sales on Smashwords and Amazon have significantly faded over the years. I sell more books on Apple than I do on Smashwords itself. Amazon is a wild card, occasionally amazing, other times not so much. Google has saved my bacon as far as sales go. I usually sell 2 to 4 times as many books on Google as I do on the others combined. I think a lot of people read books on their phones and the Google Play Store for books is the default e and audio book store for a billion phones. I can’t think of another reason for my success there.
I have one novella in the Kindle Unlimited Program, and every six months or so, someone reads it. If you are not writing mainstream Kindle novels, I don’t think being an Amazon only publisher is worth it, though obviously I can’t speak with any authority on that choice. I made my choice because I wanted to sell my books for free, and I couldn’t do that on Amazon.
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Good info to know, King Midget!
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