Draft2Digital is one of the most widely known and used platforms for many, if not most, indie authors. So when they announce something, it is automatically big news. And when what is announced is new fees, that is a potentially huge cause for anxiety.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
This week, Draft2Digital has announced two such fees, the first time they have introduced fees directly to authors. To minimize anxiety, I will take a look at what the fees are and what they mean. You can have a look for yourself on the Draft2Digital website.
Account Activation Fee
The first thing to say is that one of the new fees won't affect anyone who has a Draft2Digital account. It's what's being called an “account activation” fee.
In their words, “This activation fee, combined with our verification tools and human reviewers, will help us maintain a secure, high-integrity publishing environment.” This activation fee will be a one-off payment of $20 for all new accounts.
They point to an increase in automated account creation and automated content generation. And while this section doesn't use the term “AI,” it does use the word “slop.” And it positions this as both an existential threat to trust in indie titles and (possibly more directly pertinent as trust depends on the whole ecosystem given readers can't identify D2D titles) a threat to the quality of support they can offer genuine authors when they're spending their time fighting off the bots.
Annual Maintenance Fee
The second is more likely to be relevant to many, especially where Draft2Digital is just one platform among many that you use. An annual maintenance fee of $12 will be charged on those accounts that have earned less than $100 from book sales in the preceding twelve months. The charge will be introduced on May 14 and will be charged on the anniversary of the account activation. The rationale provided is the high cost of maintaining these accounts and the difficulty covering that from commissions on very low sales figures.
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