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Draft2Digital Review: Fees, Royalties and When to Use It
By AuthorWings editorial team
Updated
11 min read
Short answer
Draft2Digital sends your ebook to Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, library apps, and other stores from one upload. As of October 2026, it keeps about 10% of the list price, so you earn about 60% at most stores. New accounts pay $20 once, and accounts with books on sale earning under $100 a year pay $12 a year.
Draft2Digital (D2D) is a distributor: you upload your book once, tick the stores and library apps you want, and it lists your book in each one and pays you one combined royalty every month. This review checks every fee, rate, and rule on Draft2Digital’s own pages, as of October 2026, and works out what it costs you compared with publishing to each store yourself.
Draft2Digital or direct? Compare a year of royalties
Enter your ebook price and how many copies you expect to sell each month outside Amazon.
- A year through Draft2Digital$359.28
- A year publishing direct$419.16
- Direct earns more by$59.88
At this level you clear $100 a year through Draft2Digital, so the $12 yearly fee wouldn’t apply. A new account also pays a one-time $20 fee.
Assumes sales split evenly across Apple Books, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble. Draft2Digital pays 60% at those stores at any price. Direct rates: Apple Books 70%, Barnes & Noble Press 70%, Kobo Writing Life 70% at $2.99 and up and 45% below. Rates as of October 2026; taxes and currency changes not included.
Draft2Digital at a glance
Draft2Digital is free to explore, and it charges once you publish: a one-time fee for new accounts and about 10% of each sale. You keep your rights and can take a book off sale at any time.
| What you want to know | Draft2Digital, as of October 2026 |
|---|---|
| What it does | Distributes ebooks to stores, subscription services, and library apps, and paperbacks through Amazon and Ingram’s network |
| Cost to start | One-time $20 activation fee for new accounts that publish |
| Yearly fee | $12 if your account earns under $100 a year after Draft2Digital’s share |
| Draft2Digital’s share | About 10% of the list price of each sale |
| Your ebook royalty | About 60% of the list price at most stores |
| Paperback royalty | About 45% of the list price, minus printing |
| Amazon | Ebooks by invitation only |
| Free ISBN | Yes, usable only through Draft2Digital |
| When you’re paid | Monthly, around the 15th |
To see how it compares with KDP, IngramSpark, and each store, read self-publishing platforms compared.
What Draft2Digital costs in 2026
Draft2Digital costs a one-time $20 when you open a new account and publish, about 10% of each sale, and $12 a year only if your books earn very little.
- Activation fee: $20, once, and non-refundable. Accounts opened before the fee started don’t pay it.
- Maintenance fee: $12 a year, charged on your account anniversary, when your earnings after Draft2Digital’s share were under $100 in the previous 12 months. It started on May 14, 2026. Accounts with no books in distribution don’t pay it.
- Commission: about 10% of the list price, taken from each sale before you’re paid.
At $4.99, you earn about $2.99 a copy, so 34 copies a year (about 3 a month) clears the $100 mark. If you’d rather stop selling for a while, Draft2Digital’s Mass Remove tool takes every book off sale, and no yearly fee is charged while nothing is on sale. If you relist later, any maintenance fee due must be paid before distribution restarts.
According to Draft2Digital’s CEO, its formatting tools and Books2Read universal book links remain free. You can upload a Word file, or an EPUB for an ebook.
How much you earn at each store
Draft2Digital pays about 60% of the list price at most stores, about 10 percentage points less than publishing direct to a store that pays 70%.
| Store or service | Your royalty through Draft2Digital |
|---|---|
| Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Tolino, Gardners, Fable | 60% at any price |
| Vivlio | 55% |
| Smashwords Store | 75% at $2.99 and up, 40% below |
| Amazon (invitation only) | 60% at $2.99 to $9.99, otherwise 30% (51% in Germany, Austria, Spain, Switzerland, Luxembourg, Liechtenstein, and Andorra) |
| Everand (subscription) | 60% when a reader passes 20% of the book |
| Kobo Plus (subscription) | 51% of your share of the subscription pool |
One $4.99 ebook, both ways. Our example author, Maya Ellison, sells her cozy mystery Steeped in Secrets for $4.99.
| Store | Through Draft2Digital | Direct to the store |
|---|---|---|
| Apple Books | $2.99 | $3.49 (70%) |
| Kobo | $2.99 | $3.49 (70% at $2.99 and up) |
| Barnes & Noble | $2.99 | $3.49 (70%) |
| Smashwords Store | $3.74 | Only through Draft2Digital |
At 10 copies a month outside Amazon, that’s $359 a year through Draft2Digital and $419 direct, a difference of about $60 a year. Direct rates are as of October 2026.
Where Draft2Digital pays more: below $2.99, Kobo pays 45% direct, but Draft2Digital pays 60% at any price. A $0.99 first book in a series earns $0.59 at Kobo through Draft2Digital and $0.45 direct.
Where Draft2Digital sends your book
Draft2Digital reaches the main ebook stores outside Amazon, two subscription services, and the main library apps. You choose each one with a checkbox, and new stores aren’t added unless you opt in.
- Stores: Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords Store, Bookshop.org, Tolino, Vivlio, Gardners, and Fable.
- Subscriptions: Everand and Kobo Plus.
- Library apps: OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla, and BorrowBox, plus Vivlio’s library service.
- Not included: Google Play Books, which isn’t on Draft2Digital’s store list. Publish there yourself if you want it.
- Amazon: ebooks by invitation only, for titles Draft2Digital judges top-tier and distinctive. It can’t run Amazon pre-orders, and Amazon sales through it earn nothing from Kindle+ (formerly Kindle Unlimited) page reads. Publish to Amazon through KDP yourself.
Library rates: when a library buys a copy to lend to one reader at a time, OverDrive, cloudLibrary, and BorrowBox pay you 46% of the price the library pays, so $4.60 on a $9.99 copy. OverDrive also pays 4.6% per checkout on its pay-per-checkout model, and Hoopla pays 3.8% per checkout.
Can you use Draft2Digital with KDP Select?
Yes, for library apps only. KDP Select makes your ebook exclusive to Amazon in digital form, with public libraries as the exception, so you can tick only the library services in Draft2Digital and leave every store and subscription service unticked. Ticking Apple Books, Kobo, Everand, Kobo Plus, or any other store breaks the exclusivity. See how KDP Select works before you enroll.
D2D Print: paperbacks through Draft2Digital
D2D Print turns your ebook into a black-and-white paperback and makes it available through Amazon and Ingram’s network of bookstores and libraries, paying about 45% of the list price minus the printing cost. On a $14.99 paperback, that’s about $6.75 before printing. Draft2Digital shows your royalty for each store before you publish.
- Print pre-orders can open up to a year ahead, with final files uploaded.
- Stores pay Draft2Digital for print sales up to 90 days after the end of the month of the sale.
- It’s paperback only. For hardcovers or more control over printing, see KDP and IngramSpark compared.
The free ISBN and “vendor of record”
Draft2Digital gives every book a free ISBN, but it works only through Draft2Digital. Draft2Digital is listed as the vendor of record with the ISBN agency, which gives it no rights to your book, and the publisher name you choose is the one readers see.
If you leave Draft2Digital later, a book with its free ISBN needs a new ISBN elsewhere. If you want your own imprint name in every database, or one ISBN that works on every platform, buy your own. Our guide explains what an ISBN does.
How Draft2Digital pays you
Draft2Digital pays monthly, around the 15th, once you reach the minimum for your payment method. Stores pay Draft2Digital 30 to 60 days after the end of the month of a sale, and up to 90 days for print, so by our count your first payment arrives two to three months after your first sales.
| Payment method | Minimum | Fee |
|---|---|---|
| Direct deposit (US) | $10 | None listed |
| International direct deposit | $20 | None listed |
| Payoneer | $20 | None listed |
| PayPal | $10 | 2.5%, capped at $1.50 (US) or $25 (outside the US) |
| Check | $100 | $2.50 (US address) or $4.00 (outside the US) |
Complete the tax interview first. Authors outside the US have 30% withheld unless a tax treaty form is on file.
Smashwords is now part of Draft2Digital
Draft2Digital acquired Smashwords in 2022, and today Smashwords is a store you tick inside your Draft2Digital account. It pays 75% on ebooks priced $2.99 and up, the highest rate on Draft2Digital’s list, and 40% below.
Draft2Digital pros and cons
Draft2Digital saves you time and accounts, and costs you about 10% of each sale for it.
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
| One upload and one dashboard for many stores and library apps | About 14% less per sale (10 percentage points) than publishing direct to stores that pay 70% |
| Formatting tools and Books2Read universal book links at no extra charge | $20 to start, and $12 a year at low sales |
| Library reach without separate contracts | No Google Play Books; Amazon by invitation only |
| One payment, with low minimums | Paperback only for print |
| Pays more than Kobo direct below $2.99 | Its free ISBN can’t move with you |
Its content rules matter too: Draft2Digital accepts AI-assisted books but not books generated entirely by AI, all content needs substantial human editing, and it doesn’t accept AI-produced nonfiction from authors without expertise in the subject. It also keeps erotica out of Bookshop.org and the OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla, and BorrowBox library apps.
Should you use Draft2Digital or publish direct?
Use Draft2Digital if you want your ebook in many stores and library apps without managing an account for each one. Publish to each store yourself if most of your sales will come from two or three stores that pay 70% and you don’t mind more dashboards.
Many authors mix both: KDP for Amazon, direct accounts at Apple Books and Kobo, and Draft2Digital for library apps and smaller stores. For Barnes & Noble, compare B&N Press direct with a distributor. A store can list your book only once, so don’t tick a store in Draft2Digital where you already publish direct.
When to get help
Setting up stores is a one-time job, but each store asks for files, book details, and tax forms. We can do it for you, with every account opened in your name: the Online Stores tier ($549) publishes your ebook to Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, and Google Play Books, and Global ($999) adds library apps. See our ebook publishing services, or start with ebook formatting from $89.
Ebook publishing
Want your ebook in every store, set up for you?
We open every store account in your name, upload your files, and set your prices. You keep 100% of your royalties.
- Amazon from $249
- Online Stores $549
- Global $999, with library apps
Draft2Digital questions authors ask
Is Draft2Digital free?
Not fully, as of October 2026. New accounts pay a one-time $20 activation fee when they publish, and Draft2Digital keeps about 10% of each sale’s list price. Accounts with books on sale that earn under $100 a year after that share also pay $12 a year. Draft2Digital’s CEO has said its formatting tools and universal book links remain free.
Does Draft2Digital publish to Amazon?
Only by invitation, as of October 2026. Draft2Digital accepts a small number of titles it judges top-tier for Amazon’s Kindle store, can’t run Amazon pre-orders, and earns nothing from Kindle+ (formerly Kindle Unlimited) page reads. Many authors publish to Amazon through KDP themselves and use Draft2Digital for every other store and for library apps.
Can I use Draft2Digital and KDP Select at the same time?
Yes, if you send your ebook only to library apps through Draft2Digital. KDP Select requires your ebook to be exclusive to Amazon in digital form, but it makes an exception for public libraries. Tick only library services such as OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla, or BorrowBox, and leave every store and subscription service, including Everand and Kobo Plus, unticked.
Does Draft2Digital take any rights to my book?
No. You keep the rights, choose your own price, and can remove your book from any store at any time. If you use Draft2Digital’s free ISBN, Draft2Digital is listed only as the vendor of record, and the publisher name you choose is the one shown. That free ISBN works only through Draft2Digital.
How do I avoid the $12 Draft2Digital fee?
Earn at least $100 a year after Draft2Digital’s share, which is about 34 copies at $4.99, or about 3 a month. If your books aren’t selling, the Mass Remove tool takes them all off sale, and accounts with no books in distribution don’t pay the fee. If you relist later, any maintenance fee due must be paid before distribution restarts.
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AuthorWings editorial team
The AuthorWings editorial team writes and updates our guides for first-time authors. Every post is read and edited by a person on our team before it is published.
