Back when I first started publishing books almost twenty years ago there was a real lack of resources available to me. Unlike now, you couldn’t throw a proverbial rock and hit a service provider. There wasn’t anyone mass mailing you trying to sell you services, no random DMs, and no real groups for authors. In fact, there were very few options for the smol potato independent authors to choose from as far as layout and cover design. Which left people like me learning HOW to do a whole bunch of things. When eBooks became this new trend, places like Amazon and Smashwords opened up to the little author. If you were there back then, you know all about things like the “meat grinder” and trying to make Word behave. If you don’t, well, count yourself lucky.

The other day Draft2Digital announced they were basically taking over Smashwords to bring the good of both worlds into one product. Now, I left Smashwords a long time ago (2017) for Pronoun (RIP), but I sure did miss the ability to give out coupons and do other fun things. The one thing I didn’t miss was all that horrible formatting you had to learn how to do to get your books the way the bots at Smashwords wanted. One of the big draws for me to Draft2Digital was the fact you didn’t have to format your document; they did it for you! Another interesting perk was the ability to download the book file the company formatted for you and use the file anywhere you pleased–even if you didn’t distribute the book through them. Draft2Digital also stepped up their game to make the slew of displaced Pronoun authors happy by providing author pages. (You can find mine at https://books2read.com/ap/RQlvKx/Shannon-McRoberts)

So, why am I yammering on about this D2D and formatting? Because just the other day I saw at least 4 authors in various places wondering who could format their ebook/paper book, or having issues formatting their books by hand, and one poor soul was just clueless on where to even start. Since I’ve moved to Draft2Digital, I simply upload my Word doc and use the built in tools to format both my paper and ebook files. Sure, the formatting might not be as fancy as some options out there, but this is fast and free! As a bonus, Amazon started accepting ePubs so now I don’t even have to mess with their formatting program.

Draft2Digital also offers paperback printing and with the yelling I’ve heard lately about Amazon and paper books from my friends it sounds like everyone should be giving D2D a try. I’ve compared the same book printed from Amazon to one printed by D2D and I must admit the D2D is a bit better in quality. D2D cover creator is also very user friendly. Oh, and did I mention the distribution seems to be pretty good as well…Amazon claims your book is on a list for bookstores, but I find my D2D paper books are easier for people to find out there in the wild. I hardly ever sell any paper books and the first one I published with D2D sold 23 copies the first month!

If you haven’t tried Draft2Digital you should visit their website and try it out! You can use my affiliate link if you would like https://www.draft2digital.com/shannonmcroberts (this will cost you nothing, but the fine folks at D2D will give me monies if you sell books there too!)