Tag Archives: Draft2Digital

Good News for Indie Authors – Bookshop.org partners with Draft2Digital

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Bookshop.org Links and Widgets

by Debbie Burke

When two people you like and respect join together in marriage, it’s cause for celebration. When two businesses you like and respect join together, it’s less romantic but still cause for celebration.

On February 4, 2026, Draft2Digital and Bookshop.org announced their new partnership. For indie authors and bookstores, this is worth popping a champagne cork.

Draft2Digital has been around since 2012 as a way to distribute ebooks to outlets including Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple, as well as numerous library sites. I first learned about them in 2016 at the Pikes Peak Writers Conference and have enjoyed using their services in the years since.

Indie authors who want to “go wide” (rather than stay exclusive with Amazon) have to upload their books manually to other sales outlets. That takes a lot of time as well as learning the particular quirks of each system.

D2D streamlines that process. Upload your book once to their easy-to-maneuver site. Their formatting templates are free to use and offer various genre styles that produce good looking books.

You then choose which sellers you want and D2D automatically distributes to them. Their formatting conforms to the individual requirements of each marketplace.

There’s no upfront cost to the author because they take a percentage from sales.

For someone tech challenged (like me!), this fits the bill. I’m more than willing to give up 10% of royalties to have D2D do the heavy lifting. Their site is user friendly and their customer service is always responsive.

When D2D makes changes in terms, they are refreshingly transparent. They don’t make stealth alterations that sneak up later to bite the author in the butt (not pointing fingers here but you might guess who I’m referring to).

Bookshop.org was founded in 2020 by Andy Hunter to support independent bookstores under siege from a certain eight-billion-pound online gorilla. Bookshop.org donates a portion of profits to indie stores. To date, donations add up to more than $45 million.

Their self-described mission is:

A socially-conscious way to buy books online. We dedicate most of our profits to supporting local, independent bookstores, authors, and publications that cover books. We are preserving the profound cultural benefits of bookstores even when readers prefer the convenience of online shopping.

Increasingly I’m hearing backlash from readers and consumers in general who are disenchanted with monopolistic business practices by giant corporations. Many now refuse to buy from one particular gorilla. They prefer to support independent bookstores.

So how will this new partnership between Bookshop.org and D2D work?

Maggie Lynch, a respected colleague from the Authors Guild, summarizes the arrangement:

Bookshop.org pays royalties to the author, just like they do for print books. If you are doing this through D2D, the royalties are paid out for those ebooks to D2D who then take their percentage 10% of retail price and reimburse you with the remainder of your royalty.

In addition, 10% of all sales on Bookshop.org are added to an earnings pool that is evenly divided and distributed to independent bookstores every six months. They also have an affiliate option where they sell print books, and now ebooks, through their store. When they sell those books using the bookshop.org link the bookshop earns a 30% payment of the cover price on any sales generated from the link. NOTE: Authors can become affiliates as well but the payout is 10% instead of 30%.

Many small bookstores use Bookshop.org (I think they have 2,000 bookstores currently aligned). It is a way for brick and mortar stores to make money on the online sales, packaging, and distribution of both print and ebooks without having to invest in a website and all the sales, taxes, picking, packaging, and shipping costs for that online environment.

Thanks, Maggie! (Check out her 30+ books at this link)

The day after the announcement of the partnership, I received an email from D2D offering the option of distributing my books via Bookshop.org. The process was simple: one click to add all books at once, or each could be added individually. I clicked to add all books. Two days later, D2D sent confirmation emails that all books were up on Bookshop.org.

That illustrates how easy, responsive, and painless D2D makes it to do business with them.

As an indie author, I don’t plan to jump ship from the world’s largest bookstore because it accounts for most of my sales. But it’s good to have alternatives.

This link tells you how to add your books to Bookshop.org.

This link explains how to use D2D.

I like doing business with responsible, ethical companies like Bookshop.org and Draft2Digital. Their missions complement each other, supporting indie authors and independent bookstores.

Happy to raise a glass to toast this partnership. May they enjoy many happy years together.

~~~

TKZers: do you use Draft2Digital to distribute your books? Are your books in Bookshop.org? Please share your experiences with each. Have they been positive, negative, or mixed?

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Draft2Digital offers another easy-peasy tool: the universal book link (UBL). A single link shows various markets and library sites where books are available. Please click on covers to see  UBLs to purchase books in the Tawny Lindholm Thriller series:

 

New AI Survey Results from Draft2Digital

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by Debbie Burke

@burke_writer

Almost 20 years ago, a giant communications company decided to outsource their phone customer service to other countries. I learned about this from a friend who worked there. The company announced massive layoffs of employees because overseas labor costs were cheaper than using American workers.

Then, to add insult to injury, those employees whose jobs were being eliminated were required to train their replacements.

Not surprisingly, outsourcing didn’t work out too well. There was massive consumer backlash because neither the customers nor the new workers could understand each other on the phone. But the damage had been done. Thousands of American workers lost their jobs and the company’s reputation took a big hit that it never recovered from.

That kind of parallels today’s situation with writers and AI. Our work is being scraped from illegal pirate sites and used to “train” AI to replace us.

Some people joke that AI (artificial intelligence) is “artificial insemination.” Writers are being screwed without receiving any enjoyment. They didn’t even buy us dinner first.

The Authors Guild (AG) has been on the forefront to try to protect writers from unauthorized use of copyrighted works to train AI. In July, 2023, they sent an open letter to the CEOs of AI giants including Open AI, Meta, Microsoft, IBM, and others with a petition signed by 15,000 authors. AG also testified before the senate, decrying pirate sites that are used by tech companies to “train” AI models.

The genie is out of the bottle. AI is here to stay. The question now is: can the genie be forced to compensate writers for their words?

Here’s an excerpt from the Authors Guild statement on AI:

“The Authors Guild believes that the right to license a work for AI training belongs to the author of the work unless the rights are expressly granted in an agreement.”

A bill called “The Generative AI Copyright Disclosure Act of 2024” is under consideration by the House of Representatives. This only requires disclosure by anyone who uses copyrighted work to train AI. It does not address fair compensation for that use.

Recently Draft2Digital (D2D) did a survey among authors, publishers, and others to determine how they felt about the use of AI and what authors would consider fair compensation for use of their work. D2D CEO Kris Austin kindly gave permission to quote from the survey results (full results at this link).

Here are some highlights:

1. “Why do authors oppose AI training?” 

AI companies are unethical/untrustworthy – 25%
Harms creatives & people – 25%
Ethical Objections to AI – 19%
Other Reasons – 14%
I worked hard for my work and it’s mine – 10%
AI has no place in creative work – 8%”

2. “Do authors consider current scraping methods fair use?”

It’s not fair use – 49%

Ethically questionable – 42%

Fair use – 5%

No opinion – 3%

3. “Do authors know that AI companies might be willing to pay for training data?”

Unaware – 57%

Aware – 38%

Unsure – 5%

4. “Are authors interested in the opportunity to sell their AI training rights?”

Yes – 31%

No – 25%

Maybe – 45%

5. “Does it matter to authors how the end product LLM (large language model) will be used?”

Yes, it matters. – 76 %

Not as long as I am compensated – 22%

No opinion – 2%

The next two questions concern whether authors would consider having their work used for non-competitive markets (places that would not affect the author’s income) and competitive markets (e.g. an AI-written mystery could sell on Amazon right next to your book but at a much lower price).

6. “If the use case is non-competitive, will authors consider selling their AI training rights?”

No Amount of money will ever be enough – 49.5%
Open to non-competitive opportunities – 50.5%
Would accept less than $100 per book – 11.1%
Only if $100 or more per book – 39.3%
Only if more than $5,000 per book – 14.1%”

7. “If the use case is competitive, will authors consider selling their AI training rights?”

No amount of money will ever be enough – 62.8%
Open to competitive opportunities – 37.2%
Would accept less than $100 a book – 6.3%
Only if $100 or more per book – 30.9%
Only if more than $5,000 per book – 15.8%

Here’s a summary of D2D’s position:

D2D’S STANCE
Until we see significant reforms, especially around greater contractual protections and transparency governing use, intellectual property protections, and rights restrictions, Draft2Digital will not offer AI rights licensing opportunities.

·       It’s a positive development that AI developers are seeking to pay for licenses

·       Better protections are needed before D2D or its publishers can entertain such licenses

·       AI training rights are an exclusive, valuable subsidiary right under the sole control of the author or publisher

·       The rights-holder deserves full control over decisions related to if, when, and how their books are used or licensed for AI training purposes.

·       Authors and publishers should refuse AI rights licensing contracts that are opaque, or that provide inadequate protections for author concerns

·       AI developers must stop training upon books obtained without the rights-holder’s permission; otherwise, they will face continued reputational harm in the eyes of their customers and the creative community

·       LLMs previously trained upon unlicensed content, and the applications built upon them, should either negotiate retroactive licensing settlements with rights holders, or scrap their LLMs and rebuild them from scratch by training upon licensed content only”

“At this time, Draft2Digital will not offer AI rights licensing opportunities.”

I believe most authors agree that compensation should be paid and payment should be retroactive to include past unauthorized use.

The devil is in the details.

·       How to implement systems that detect/determine use of copyrighted material?

·       How to enforce fair use?

·       How much are authors paid?

·       What if an author doesn’t want their work used for AI training  under any circumstances?

The communications company my friend worked for treated their employees shabbily but at least they told workers in advance that they had to train their replacements.

Authors and publishers were never told in advance. Tech giants simply started using creative works without permission nor compensation to the creators. AI-written works currently flood the marketplace that was already crowded. Our incomes suffer.

We study, rewrite, and work hard to create meaningful content and deserve fair compensation.

Those devilish details will be fought out in courts for years to come.

~~~

TKZers, how do you feel about AI’s use of your creative work to train LLMs?

Please share your answers to any or all of the questions.

~~~

Cover by Brian Hoffman

 

 

Debbie Burke writes her thrillers without AI.

Fruit of the Poisonous Tree is now available for preorder at this link.

 

Focusing on the Writing

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Focusing on the Writing
by Terry Odell

Focus on the Writing

Image by Pexels from Pixabay

I was supposed to be on a photo tour in Croatia today, but that’s been put on hold, so let’s talk about dealing with writing routines in times of distraction.

I’ve talked to a lot of people about how they’re having trouble focusing on their writing. Distractions abound, and the writing gets set aside. Guilt sets in.

It’s okay to be distracted, to flounder about. Writing less is acceptable. For me, I find the following techniques helpful. I’ve used them when coming back from vacations, when it takes a while to find my writing groove, and they work as well for me in these crazy times.

Get rid of chores that will nag.
If you are going to worry about cleaning house, paying bills, going through email, take the time to get the critical things dealt with. Otherwise you’re not going to be focused on your writing. If you’re a ‘write first’ person, don’t open anything other than your word processing program.

Do critiques for my crit group.
This might seem counterproductive, but freeing your brain from your own plot issues and looking at someone else’s writing can help get your brain into thinking about the craft itself.

Work on other ‘writing’ chores.
For me, it can be blog posts, or forum participation. Just take it easy on social media time.

Deal with critique group feedback.
Normally, I’m many chapters ahead of my subs to my crit group. If I start with their feedback on earlier chapters, I get back into the story, but more critically than if I simply read the chapters. And they might point out plot holes that need to be dealt with. Fixing these issues helps bring me up to speed on where I’ve been. It also gets me back into the heads of my characters.

Read the last chapter/scene you wrote.
Do basic edits, looking for overused words, typos, continuity errors. This is another way to start thinking “writerly” and it’s giving you that running start for picking up where you left off.

Consult any plot notes.
For me, it’s my idea board, since I don’t outline. I jot things down on sticky notes and slap them onto a foam core board. Filling in details in earlier chapters also helps immerse you in the book.

Figure out the plot points for the next scene.
Once you know what has to happen, based on the previous step, you have a starting point.

Write.
And don’t worry if things don’t flow immediately. Get something on the page. Fix it later.

What about you? Any tips and tricks you’ve found when outside world distractions keep you from focusing?

And one more thing. On Friday, May 1st, you have a chance to Ask Me Anything. I’ll be on a Draft2Digital Spotlight podcast talking with Mark Leslie Lefevbre. It’ll be broadcast on YouTube and Facebook. You can bookmark the links and you might be able to set up a reminder.
Time: 10 Pacific, 11 Mountain, 12 Central, Noon Eastern. It’ll be my first video appearance. Yikes!  The program is 45 minutes long, with the last 15 minutes for Q&A. I hope to meet you there.

 


Terry Odell is an award-winning author of Mystery and Romantic Suspense, although she prefers to think of them all as “Mysteries with Relationships.” Follow her on Facebook and Twitter.