#draft2digital | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

thebibliosphere · 6 months

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Cost of inflation aside, the draft2digital upload process is brilliant in comparison to Ingram Spark. It's intuitive, easy to follow, and lets you see the files in real-time instead of making you wait to see your physical proof. I also had a minor problem with something, and customer service got back to me within a few hours, not the literal weeks I've gotten used to with Ingram.

The cover it auto-generated from my ebook files was not the greatest, but if you're on a tight budget or unable to afford separate covers and wanted to do paperback, you could absolutely make it work with a little tweaking.

I had separate covers already because Ingram and Amazon require you to have PDF wraparounds (both different dimensions from each other), and while the Ingram one didn't work (Ingram formatting works literally nowhere, not even on Ingram 🙃), the Amazon wrap worked. There might be a sliiiight issue with the ISBN overlapping, but it was hard to tell on screen. I guess we'll see how it looks when the physical proof copy arrives.

So. Yeah. That was way less of a stressful experience.

And none of my files are being held captive! I can hit cancel at any moment without having to pay $25 to talk to a human to get my files pulled. Incredible... And if you're thinking to yourself, Joy, that sounds like the bare minimum of competency, I need you to know that after years of Ingram Spark, the bar for this kind of thing is so low it's in Hell.

Anyway. I'll post an update on print quality once the proof gets here.

#draft2digital

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copperbadge · 10 months

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Every time, you guys. Every time I look into alternatives to Lulu.com for self-publishing I come up with “Wow Lulu really is the best of a bad set of options, huh?”

Recently, Draft2Digital bought Smashwords in order to bring a print book company under their aegis; they’d formerly only done ebooks. I thought I might investigate them as an alternative to Lulu, which I’ve used for about twelve years now. For ebooks I would venture D2D is probably top of the line. For print books they are....not.

I’m writing this out half so other folks can see it but half so that in the future I can look this up and remind myself of why I’m still with Lulu.

TLDR: Not only does Draft2Digital want 60% of my print book royalties where Lulu takes 0%, and $30 for a proof that costs me $11 at Lulu, but I also appear to have solved the problem of why Lulu was making me price my books so goddamn artificially high. Which is like. Honestly the best anti-anxiety drug I’ve experienced this week.

Basically there are a number of elements that go into self-publishing with a print-on-demand service. For some publishers, there’s a “setup fee” which doesn’t really set anything up, it’s just there to be a fee, everything is done by computer on the back end. Traditionally, Lulu has not charged a setup fee. Smashwords used to charge $50, but Draft2Digital currently waives it. I was heartened by that because the setup fee was keeping me from migrating, since I can afford $50 but I balk at knowing I’m paying them $50 for nothing.

Next is the cost of printing -- what it costs the company in paper, ink, machinery, labor, etc, to just make a book with no profit. Lulu’s price calculus isn’t super clear and I’ve never bothered looking at what the breakdown is, because they’re pretty up-front -- they tell you in the process of setting the book up how much it’ll cost. In this case, a 140-page 6x9 trade paperback, no frills, which is how all my books are printed, is $5. Draft2Digital doesn’t tell you the flat price anywhere but they do offer the breakdown information; it costs $1.22 flat plus $0.0133 per page. So, for a 140 page book, the at-cost is $3.08. So far so good.

Now, if you’re going to sell through Lulu, the “at cost” is the minimum price. You won’t make any money but you CAN charge just $5 for a $5 book. Any pricing above that is your cut. So -- let’s price this 140 page trade paperback at $13-$15. That’s a bit high to be honest but let’s just see. At Lulu, your take is roughly $6-$8 based on those prices, because you’re just dropping out the cost of printing from the retail price.

At Draft2Digital, the same 140-page trade paperback, which remember is quoted as costing roughly $1.20 less to print than Lulu charges, gets you $2.75-$3.50 in royalties per book.

....wait, what?

So now we need to sidetrack a little but I promise it’s for a reason. One of the motivations for looking into a change to Draft2Digital is that I didn’t like that Lulu was setting higher “minimum prices” than I was accustomed to -- they would tell me the book only cost $5 to print but require me to sell it for $12 or similar, and I couldn’t work out why. I’m an idiot but the penny did finally drop: it’s because when you distribute them outside of Lulu (say, on Amazon or Barnes & Noble or similar) your royalties drop like a stone. $7 in royalties purchased through Lulu comes out to like twenty-five cents purchased through Amazon. So Lulu forces you to price the book at a point where you even GET royalties and don’t end up weirdly owing Amazon money. The “global distribution” is what’s driving that minimum up.

So in price-quoting a competitor I actually solved the problem with Lulu.

Which is good, because the fun doesn’t stop there. If you want a proof copy of a book from Lulu, it’s the at-cost of the book, plus tax, plus postage. Buying a proof copy of this book from Lulu would cost me $11. Lulu makes you order a new proof copy every time you make a change, which is shady, but usually I only need to make 1-2 changes across the life of a book, so at most the cost will probably be $35 and for that I’ll get three copies of the book. Draft2Digital doesn’t give you an option. If you want a proof pre-publication, it’s $30 flat. If you want to publish and then buy a copy you can, but you can only make one change to the book every 90 days once it’s published. If you want to make more than one change, it’s $25 every time you upload a new version of the manuscript within that 90 day period.

So Draft2Digital’s books cost less to print but they take a massive cut of your royalties out of the retail cost of the book. If the book costs $3 to print, and I price it at $15, that’s $12 in profit on the book. Of that $12, however, I only receive $4. Draft2Digital literally wants 2/3 of my royalties per book. They want $20 more than Lulu to send me a proof copy. If I need to correct the proof, the correction is free, but I’m assuming the second proof will also cost me $30. Any changes after that, within 90 days, will cost $25 plus $30 for a new proof.

Which means my upfront costs at Lulu are about $35 per published book; to do the same thing at Draft2Digital is between $60 and $105 depending on whether I need to make changes after the second proof copy. And even after that, my royalties at Lulu are just about twice what they would be at Draft2Digital per purchase.

So, well, Lulu it is. And the problem I was having with Lulu is solved if I decide to just retail through Lulu rather than selling globally. Which...selling globally has done two things that I’m aware of:

1. Fucked up my author page so badly on Amazon that one of my books is still attributed to Kathleen Starbuck, and one of her books is for sale on my author page.

2. Raised the minimum price I’m allowed to set my books at by like, 40%.

So I think probably what’s going to happen is going forward my books will be for sale only on Lulu. I can still assign them ISBNs and they still will ship worldwide, and the prices will fall significantly. My deepest apologies to those of you who have paid an artificially inflated price for the last few books; I’m going to fix that going forward, I’m going to go in and try to fix it retroactively in the books that are already on Lulu, and if it’s any consolation at least the cash came to me, and TWO THIRDS OF IT didn’t go to Lulu.

It’s gonna take me a little time, untangling Lulu’s relationship to other retailers is tricky, but eventually the Shivadh Omnibus and Twelve Points should come down significantly in price, and there ought to be a dollar or two drop for the older books as well.

This is why it always pays to do the math, even if like me you are dreadful at it.

#selfpub #self publishing #publishing #draft2digital #lulu #archive

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j-mcguirebooks · 1 month

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Writing Progress Update

Had an excellent 4 days attending the Storygarden Summit. Lots of great information on plotting, editing and marketing by Plottr, Draft2Digital, Fictionary and so many others! It really inspired me to get back behind the (writing) desk. Currently in the process of a rough outline of my series before I do a more detailed outline of my first book in it, following the advice from Lisa Cron’s ‘Story Genius’ (such great advice!!!). I will share some updates on my Plotting process when I get to the individual book outlining.

#writers #writers on tumblr #writing #my writing #writerscommunity #writer things #writer stuff #writerblr #writer thoughts #writing update #plottr #fictionary #draft2digital

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card-games-hell · 1 year

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I gotta say I was nervous about dropping my little collection of short fiction into print because of the horrors I've heard about dealing with Amazon. I learned that draft2digital had rolled out its print on demand service to everyone and so I figured I'd give it a try, because I despise Amazon. I had used SmashWords for the ebook version, which is now merging with D2D. I think draft2digital will be a powerful tool in my indie career moving forward.

While I'm still wary of the wasteful nature of indie print publishing and I did this largely as an experiment so I wouldn't say that this is my best foot forward it is going to be an interesting thing to compare this to my next book project and see how far I've come in between.

It was easy to use, gives a selection of beautiful templates and makes the process as worry free and painless as possible. I'll update this opinion once I get my hands on some copies.

I only have two pinch points with D2D's print publishing. 1) That a preprint physical proof is $30 and you can't print until you've received it and approved it, you can however verify the digital proof that is instantly available and approve it that way and 2) that you can only freely update inner material and cover material once every 90 days, or you'll have to pay to update said materials.

That said, if those are my only two complaints I guess I'll be happy about it. More on this as it develops.

#amWriting #publishing #indie publishing #indie author #writing community #draft2digital

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authorkarajorgensen · 1 year

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Why My Books Aren't in KU

In this week's post, I wanted to talk about why I decided to ditch KU in 2018 and why going wide has been a good choice for me.

Because someone on the internet will willfully misinterpret this, this isn’t bashing authors who use Kindle Unlimited, but with everything, it is a business decision. I’m writing this post because I feel bad for my friends who have gone all in on Amazon and feel like their world has been upended. It especially sucks because having been publishing since 2014, this has happened before. Full…

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#author #d2d #draft2digital #going wide #google play #indie author #indie publishing #Kindle Unlimited #KU #publishing #publishing experience #writing

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ashen-crest · 2 years

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D2D refer a friend program!

If anyone here is on the fence about signing up for D2D, I signed up for their Refer a Friend program- basically, they give me money if you sign up. (It doesn’t take any money from you! D2D is free to sign up.)

If you were gonna sign up for D2D anyway, check out this link to sign up!

(and pro-tip for anyone looking to sign up, D2D should give you this deal, too! I think it took a few weeks for them to send me the info about the program.)

#draft2digital #indie author #self publishing

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tajimati1-blog · 2 years

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#July 112022 #Book #poetry #ToyinSebastienAjimati #canada #toronto #ottawa #new your city #barnes and nobles press #amazon books #draft2digital #applebooks #Kobo

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nalyathomas · 1 month

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inemetoput · 3 months

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Andrea Baschkevsky explores what happens when, what seems like a simple chat, goes further than imagined 🙃

Available now at your favorite online bookstores! 📚

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jolenes-book-journey · 3 months

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Southern Dragon Publishing - Smashwords End of the Year Sale for Author ...

There are still some holiday book sales happening. I like the tools that Smashwords provides for indie authors. They have a couple of grand sales events and invite their authors to participate. They also provide graphics, a couple codes, and more to share with your readers. Now that Draft2Digital has purchased the company you can utilize these marketing tools from your dashboard. So, if you are not currently a Smashwords author you do not have to join just to take advantage of these tools.

#youtube #SmashwordsSales #Draft2Digital #SelfPublishedAuthors #JoAnnLordahlAuthor

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bornangelauthor · 5 months

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IN REVIEW

KALISTA CHRONICLES, BOOK 5: AN ANGEL'S ADVENT HAS NOW BEEN SUBMITTED FOR PREORDER!!!!

To Amazon, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Scribd etc. (the last four through Draft2Digital.

It's been on my own website for nearly three weeks... and

THERE ARE ONLY 7 MORE DAYS TO PREORDER SIGNED COPIES.

Also, for those who ordered the last book in Hardback, I am sending them out on Monday!

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fillycolt · 5 months

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I'm considering using draft2digital to publish my books but I'm so confused by the terms of service lingo and I have some questions particularly about how payments and tax slips work. If you're Canadian and have published with them, I'd love to hear from you!!

#draft2digital #Self publishing #authors of tumblr #thoughts.txt

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ancientroyalblood · 8 months

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Finding My Writing Style: A Journey of Descriptive Exploration

Writing is an art that evolves with time and practice. When I started my writing journey a few years ago, I received valuable advice to stick to simple terms like “said,” “asked,” and “replied.” These basic elements provided a solid foundation for my storytelling. However, everything changed when a friend, who had been reading my books, suggested exploring a more descriptive style. This feedback…

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#Art of Writing #Authentic Expression #Author&039;s Experience #Author&039;s Journey #Connecting with Readers #Crafting Worlds #Creative Process #Descriptive Writing #Draft2Digital #Evolving as a Writer #Finding Balance #Personal Growth #Publishing Platform #Reader Engagement #Self-Discovery #Writing Evolution #Writing Exploration #Writing Style #Writing Tips

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faecorpspublishing · 8 months

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Changes Upcoming.

Photo by Alexas Fotos on Pexels.com It has been brought to our attention that some of our older anthologies are being printed with some formatting errors. We changed where we do our print books – and due to just how busy we have been we failed to move the older volumes when we did so. First off – We apologize for any inconvenience this has caused. We are aware now of the issue. We will be over…

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#blogging #Draft2digital #indie community #indie publishing #indiepublishing #links #Print publication issues #supporting indie authors #upcoming

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redhawkridge · 8 months

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Writing Update

I did actually get words on a page this past week! They were written in a spiral notebook in the school pick-up line and only add up to about 710 words because I can’t write near as fast as I can type, but it’s something! Once I get these on the computer, I know there will be more because I will add to them as I type. These words are the foundation for an entire chapter, if not two, and set up…

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#draft2digital #ebook preorder #friday updates #wip #writing update

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manuelbs2017 · 11 months

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Al final de mi destino: la novela de nuestra existencia.

https://books2read.com/u/b6VzPA

#amazon #literatura #kindle #libros #leer #ebook #book #paperback #novela #kobo #draft2digital #scribd #vivlio #tolino #thalia

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