On 14th May 2026, Draft2Digital introduced new fees for self-published authors using their service. Before they introduced these fees, the only cost to authors was a 10% cost based on their book’s retail price, which was deducted from royalty payments. Authors only paid a fee if their books sold.
Self-published authors use Draft2Digital to distribute their books to up to fifteen other book platforms, including Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, and Kobo, as well as several library services like OverDrive, BorrowBox, and Hoopla. With one Draft2Digital account, self-published authors can make their books available to a huge readership right around the world.
However, much to the consternation of some writers, Draft2Digital introduced two new fees. The first is an account activation fee for users who want to publish books. (D2D offers some other services, which remain free.) All new accounts opened with Draft2Digital will be subject to a $20 activation fee when they’re ready to publish their first book. This is a once-only payment, and it does not affect authors who’ve already published and distributed books prior to 14th May 2026.
The second fee is an annual maintenance fee. This may affect both new and existing account holders. The fee is $12 per year, but it only applies to self-published authors who earn less than $100 in royalties via Draft2Digital over a 12-month period.
Why The Change?
Essentially, we’re now seeing the impact of AI-generated content, which has been growing exponentially as generative AI becomes more sophisticated.
Kris Austin, Draft2Digital’s CEO, explains how things have developed.
‘Over the past few years, we’ve noticed a steady increase in the amount of automated and low-quality content. Our internal systems and human reviewers are quite good at identifying this content and stopping these titles from distribution. In 2024, however, there was a noticeable acceleration in these types of books being uploaded to our platform. That increase continued throughout 2025, and the load has continued into 2026.’
‘This is about content farms exploiting a free service,’ he continues, ‘automating the creation of dozens of accounts and attempting to publish a few books across these multiple accounts to avoid detection.’
Even though everything is automated, the sheer volume of this material puts pressure on the system, which affects genuine, human self-published authors.
‘The strategy of content farms is to overwhelm systems in the hope that a few books slip through, possibly leading to scant sales spread across multiple accounts,’ says Kris. ‘When resources are overwhelmed, this can lead to slower response times for legitimate authors, delayed distribution to our partners, and low-quality books slipping through.’
But it’s not just affecting Draft2Digital’s system. As Kris explains, there is also a knock-on effect further down the line. ‘When automated and low-quality books hit the shelves of retailers and libraries, it negatively impacts reader trust in indie books and threatens the reputation of the indie community.’
Author Anger
Of course, nobody likes paying more for something, so when the news broke, many authors were initially upset. Dianna Gunn (authordiannagunn.com) is a Canadian fantasy and horror author whose latest book is Woman of Sorrow and Blood.
‘I’ve been using Draft2Digital since 2018,’ says Dianna, ‘and I use it to distribute my fantasy and horror books to a variety of retailers. I’ve especially appreciated the opportunity to distribute my books to various library systems.’
However, she felt angry when she heard about the new fees. ‘I despise this change. It’s a poor tax levied against primarily marginalised authors who are already struggling to survive in an increasingly hostile world.’
What frustrates some authors is that while it is possible to go elsewhere and use another service, to do so will have a significant time cost, particularly for those authors who have several books.
‘I’m still deciding how these fees will impact my book distribution,’ Dianna continues. ‘There’s time for Draft2Digital to change course, and while I’ll never trust it again, I’ve got three jobs and a thousand things to do so I’d rather not be moving books to a new distributor. However, I will move my books in protest if Draft2Digital doesn’t reverse this decision, most likely to IngramSpark.’
Kris Austin understands the concern. ‘We’ve heard that some feel like we are penalising the authors who can least afford it. Draft2Digital is primarily supported by earning commissions on book sales, which works out to about 10% of a book’s list price (retail price). Authors who earn more than $100 a year are not being asked to pay a maintenance fee because commissions from their book sales cover these costs.’
‘Accounts that earn less or are stagnant still cost us money to maintain. We felt that an annual maintenance fee of $12 (USD) was the lowest amount we could charge while still having a meaningful impact on rising maintenance costs. We want to remain open to as many authors as possible, and the last thing we want to do is create hardship for authors who are striving to gain traction in the market.’
Payment Period
‘The timing of the fee is based on the account’s anniversary,’ Kris explains. ‘We’ll alert the author that their annual fee is coming up, and then they will have a grace period if the fee isn’t paid on time. If the fee is still not paid following the grace period, we’ll delist their books from distribution but keep their account open.’
Authors keen to know the date of their account anniversary should log in to their Draft2Digital account, select Account, and then click on Account Status.
Free Services
Many self-published authors use the free tools Draft2Digital offers. These will remain free, as Kris explains.
‘These changes have no impact on Books2Read.com. Anyone can have a free Books2Read account without having a Draft2Digital account. Books2Read provides a universal book link generator and other cool reader-facing discovery tools.’
‘Our formatting, conversion, and interior design templates can still be used for free. The account activation fee will only be requested once a new account holder gets to the distribution step. If an account holder decides not to pay the annual maintenance fee, they will still have access to these free tools.’
So self-published authors can still create a Draft2Digital account in order to use their free formatting and interior design services, without having to pay the account activation fee. This will only become payable if the author uses Draft2Digital to publish and distribute their first book.
Library Leverage
The annual maintenance fee may have a greater impact on self-published authors who use Draft2Digital solely for library distribution.
Last year, Amazon changed its Kindle Unlimited terms and conditions. Previously, authors enrolled in KU had to be exclusive to the Amazon platform for their eBooks.
Since September 2025, Amazon has allowed books enrolled in KU to be distributed to library services. As a result, some authors enrolled in KU have been using Draft2Digital to distribute books to library services only.
Typically, the income generated by library services per book is a lot less than a book royalty, so self-published authors using Draft2Digital for library distribution only may find it more challenging to reach the $100 annual royalty threshold to avoid the maintenance fee.
However, this is a timely reminder to those of us who make our books available via library services that we should regularly promote this to our readers via our newsletters and social media channels. The self-published authors who earn more than $100 per year in library royalties are the ones who actively promote this at every opportunity they have.
Other Options
Every author’s writing business is unique, so it’s important we take time out to consider what the impact of this change is on our business. For those authors whose royalties exceed $100 per year, these changes don’t affect them. Their accounts are already up and running, so they’re not affected by the account activation fee, nor are they subject to the maintenance fee.
Authors who earn less than $100 in royalties per year will be subject to the $12 maintenance fee. This equates to $1 per month. Some may feel that, for their writing business, it’s a price worth paying to gain access to all the platforms that Draft2Digital will distribute to.
For those authors who can’t or don’t wish to pay the maintenance fee, there are some alternative options.
Authors with a Kobo Writing Life account who upload their eBooks directly to the Kobo platform can also distribute their eBooks to the OverDrive library service via Kobo’s dashboard.
IngramSpark will distribute eBooks to most major eBook platforms and twelve library services. There are no uploading or account maintenance fees, although IngramSpark takes a percentage of royalties, similar to Draft2Digital. However, there is a fee for any updates made to files sixty days after publication.
An alternative approach is to review all sales data from Draft2Digital to see where sales are being made and then set up accounts directly with those platforms.
Publishing Perspective
It’s frustrating when a business changes its terms and conditions in a way that has a knock-on effect for our own writing business, but that’s business!
The best advice in these situations is to take a deep breath, find out what the impact is on your writing business, and then make an informed choice on what works best for you at this moment in time.
For those authors who find themselves subject to the new maintenance fee, find out when your account anniversary is. If it’s several months away, there’s time to develop some marketing ideas to sell more books and, hopefully, break that $100 royalty threshold.
We’re all on our own writing journey, and we’re all at different stages of that journey. It’s important that we do what’s right for us, and not follow what everyone else is doing.
AI-generated content affects us all, and this is just one consequence. But as Kris Austin says, ‘Left unchecked, automated and low-quality content flooding publishing’s supply chain threatens reader trust in indie titles. We can’t allow that to happen.’
Business Directory
Draft2Digital FAQs: https://draft2digital.com/faq/
Kobo Writing Life: https://www.kobo.com/gb/en/p/writinglife
IngramSpark: https://www.ingramspark.com/how-it-works/distribute