Draft2Digital

The aggregator we recommend most often. One account, one upload, your book reaches Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Bookshop.org, Tolino, and a long list of public library systems.

Heads up

The D2D link Pendraic uses is a referral link. If you sign up and your books sell through D2D, Pendraic gets a small credit at no extra cost to you. We’d still recommend them either way; the referral doesn’t change what you pay or what you keep. The link is draft2digital.com/pendraic.

What it costs

  • Free to sign up with a name and email.
  • $20 one-time activation fee before you can publish your first book. Includes tax interview.
  • $12 annual maintenance fee for accounts earning under $100/year in book sales. Accounts with no books listed don’t pay it.
  • ~10% commissionon each book sale on top of the retailer’s own cut. So a sale that pays 70% royalty at the retailer is roughly 60% to you after D2D’s share.

What you get

  • Distribution to Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Smashwords, Bookshop.org, Tolino, OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla, BorrowBox, Vivlio, and Gardners.
  • Print on demand to Amazon and Ingram’s distribution network (which reaches most US bookstores and libraries).
  • Free ISBNs for ebook and print, with no claim on your rights.
  • Automatic title page, copyright, dedication, and “About the author” pages.
  • Universal Book Links (UBLs) — one URL that goes to whichever store the reader prefers.
  • Pre-orders, scheduled price promotions, payment splitting for collaborations.

A note on Amazon

D2D’s distribution to Amazon is invite-only. That’s just D2D’s own quality filter so the Kindle store doesn’t fill up with junk; it does NOT mean you can’t be on Kindle. Anyone can sign up for KDP directly at kdp.amazon.com, create a free account, and publish straight to Kindle. The recommended pattern most indie authors use: KDP direct for Kindle, D2D for every other retailer. Best of both worlds.

When NOT to use D2D

  • If you’re going Amazon-exclusive (KDP Select / Kindle Unlimited), you can’t use D2D for that book.
  • If you already use Ingram Spark for print, don’t add D2D Print on the same book — they share Ingram’s distribution and would conflict.

What Pendraic exports for D2D

On the Premium plan, Pendraic exports a “Draft2Digital-ready Word” document that follows D2D’s pocket guide exactly: Heading 1 chapter titles, no front matter (D2D auto-generates it from your metadata), 0.5″ indent on body paragraphs except the first paragraph after a chapter heading or scene break, three blank lines for scene breaks, single line spacing, system serif font. Upload that file directly to D2D and the conversion lands clean on the first try.

On Free or Essentials plans, the standard DOCX export still works — D2D’s converter is forgiving — but you may need to skip uploading any title/copyright pages from your file since D2D will add its own.