Deleting D2D

If you’ve been too busy to social media, there’s a huge issue going on with Draft2Digital (D2D). They recently sent out an email to all their account holders (hours after posting about it on their blog) about starting to charge a fee of $12 a year to any account that doesn’t make $100 or more a year on their platform. While I don’t think there is anything wrong with a fee, I find A LOT wrong with what they are doing.
For starters, they are targeting new indie authors (because they will now be charging a $20 activation fee) who haven’t started a following and will struggle to make that $100, and they are targeting struggling authors that don’t make that. I’ve had an account with them for years. Over a decade actually, and I’ve never made more than $4 a year because everyone goes to Amazon, OR I only use them for library distribution and you don’t make anything with that.
Secondly, they sent this out with zero warning to anyone that it was going to happen. They stated want to combat AI, but everyone seems to have forgotten that just a year or so ago they were trying to gain our consent to use our books to HELP the AI bots…
And finally, they have made it annoying as all hell to close your account. You have to contact their customer support in order to close it… which is annoying especially after rolling out this crap without a chance to opt out.
It’s not about the fee. It’s about the fact that they went about this so wrong it just puts a bad taste in my mouth. They want to charge a maintenance fee? Fine. CHARGE EVERY ACCOUNT. If you think these new and struggling authors can find $12, then those accounts making the $100 a year easily can also afford it. If it is truly a fee for maintenance, then EVERYONE should need to pay that. If we don’t want to, then there should be an easy button to remove ourselves from your platform.

I find it funny that days after they decided to be greedy, they tried to back track. Sending a blanket “reply” email that talks about being able to simply delist your books to avoid the fee. No. I’m done. I should have been done when you tried to pull the AI crap. I’m done now. There are other platforms that offer what D2D does, you just gotta find them. An author reached out to me about his new platform he is creating that will do the same. I’ll be moving over to that. D2D went about this wrong, and I have no problem leaving them. I also will not judge anyone that stays. Everyone is in charge of their own choices and need to do what’s best for them without others judgement. I’ve lost all faith in D2D. That’s my choice.