Draft2Digital vs Publish Drive - What's Better for Authors?

Good news my author friend. You can sell your ebook in 55 different retailers. And fortunately you're not stuck taking on every retailer alone. There are distribution services who take care of the hard work for you. But how do you know if Draft two digital or publish drive is the way to go to get your ebook around to your readers? If you're wondering which aggregate service to use, then this video is for you. Hi there, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of Book Launchers, the fantastic self publishing services firm helping you take your book idea from concept to copies in readers hands. And part of getting the books into readers hands is setting you and your book up for distribution. Whether that is your print book, your audiobook or your ebook. Amazon still reigns as king of the distribution castle in North America, but Apple, Ibooks, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, these are all worth it if you want to optimize your book for maximum reach and sales potential. And of course there are also libraries to think about. But formatting and submitting your book to 55 different book retailers? No thank you. Unless you have a whole lot of time, you're asking. Well, even if you do have a lot of time, you're still asking for a lot of work. Each individual retailer has different requirements, guidelines and standards when it comes to formatting and uploading. And if you ever need to make changes, doing that one by one is going to be tedious and confusing and probably frustrating. Thankfully, authors have a secret weapon that helps simplify the whole process. A book distribution service. A book distribution service takes your book and distributes it to publishing retailers for you so you can skip the individual upload to each and every one. This saves you time work and helps you get your book out to more readers in a lot different markets in an incredibly efficient way. Plus, these aggregate distribution services also control your analytics for you, collect all your royalties and pay you in one lump sum, which is much less painful for taxes. With all that time and energy you can turn your focus to things that matter more as an author. Like marketing and building your business and your author brand and platform. Now there are two major aggregate distribution service options for you to choose from today. Draft 2 Digital or Publish Drive since they both seem to do the same job and both do digital and physical distribution. How do you know which one to choose? Well, let's break it down and I'll tell you our pick at Book Launchers. Oh, and just a note, there used to be three major distribution services. Smashwords was also a major player in the ring, but as of February 2022 Draft 2 Digital acquired them. Their services have merged into a Distribution Services Super Duo. Distribution Services Super Duo Try and say that over and over again to take on PublishDrive all right, time for the showdown. Draft 2 Digital comes with no upfront cost, but they do take a 10% commission from all platform sales. And that's on top of the platforms taking their commission first. PublishDrive on the other hand, doesn't take any commission from your sales, but they do charge 9.99amonth for their services after a free trial period. If you're selling a lot of books, you're making more money on PublishDrive with their flat fee. But Draft2Digital, taking some commission from you on every sale, does come with some perks. For one, they do your formatting for you for both your ebook and print versions. If you haven't hired a professional, and if you're not technically savvy or you don't want to spend the time on your own formatting, or you're not hiring a professional service like Book Launchers, that can be a big win. PublishDrive requires you to handle your own formatting, which is fine for many authors At Book Launchers, we always professionally format every book for ebook as well as print anyway, but so it wouldn't really matter. PublishDrive offers some awesome marketing services like you're able to quickly and easily access functions such as Amazon advertising and review copy generation right within your dashboard and their interface and dashboard is simple to navigate. You can see your most recent information right there, like your sales stats and revenue. PublishDrive works to help you get the most out of their service by walking you through a checklist to establish where you're at as an author and what your goals are. But I don't really think they have Draft 2 digital beat here. Draft 2 digital is also very user friendly and simple to navigate, especially for your author reports. And when it comes to your goals, Draft 2 Digital actually gives you the tools to achieve them. A big one is that they give you access to a universal book link. So instead of having to create and manage a link for each individual retailer, a universal book link helps make your book more discoverable and ultimately helps you sell more more books more easily for the consumer. This link lets a consumer see everywhere your book is available in one place and then directly go to their preferred book retailer to buy your book. And in case you're wondering the status of your book on a certain platform, Draft 2 Digital's got your back. They keep you updated with notifications and emails so you'll know every time your book goes live on a platform and its status there. Oh, that reminds me, do you want notifications from me every time a new video goes up live? Then hit that thumbs up button, subscribe and ring the bell. Turn those notifications on so you don't miss out on all right, so who comes out on top in the book distribution service showdown? Well, for the Book Launchers team, there's one winner, Draft two Digital even before the Smashwords amalgamation. But now with Smashwords, there's some cool new features we expect to see like the storefront and coupon codes, which will make promotions even easier for authors and also give you another place people are shopping for books without you having to drive traffic there. This is also going to give you access to more markets because Smashwords did reach a few that Draft 2 Digital did not. Ultimately, PublishDrive is a solid choice. I love that they're female, founded and focused on self publishing just like Draft 2 Digital. And the flat fee might be great if you know you're going to sell a lot of books on the places they give you access to already and you don't need formatting support. But if you're not selling at least 100 ebooks a month or more, depending on your price points, you could be paying PublishDrive a lot more than you need to be paying with that flat fee. While the access to Amazon advertising and review copy generation right in the dashboard is convenient and a winner, the potential of Draft 2 digital service in the future only gives them more power to rise even higher. For us and the authors of book launchers, Draft 2 Digital gives you that awesome Universal Book link. You're only paying them when you sell books. You have an ever expanding reach and now that they've acquired Smashwords, we expect even more robust marketing tools. They also distribute to more markets and are continuing to grow and improve. With distribution for audiobooks on the way, the fun is just beginning. Exciting times are ahead for self publishing and indie authors because Draft two Digital is now focused on print books and Publish Drive just got another round of funding to expand their print book operations. We are still in the growing days of the self publishing industry and I could not be more excited about the innovations to come with all of these players. What do you think? Let's chat about it in the comments below and let's hang out some more. The fun is just getting started here too. Check out this video right here, all about ebook promotion sites so you can sell more books once you have them in the world. And this video on Universal Book Links. If you're trying to figure out what those are and how to use them. Both of those videos are awesome. So take your pick, and I'll see you there.