EEP! Distribution Change at Draft2Digital
A beast continues to rear its head in the world of publishing, leaving a trail of slop in its wake. Publishers and distributors have been watching it grow over the years. Many have taken up arms and fortified their gates. The beast we refer to is the steadily-growing inundantion of AI-generated, low content books being published—what’s come to be known as “spam books”.Recently, Draft2Digital joined the fight.
In an interview with author Kevin McLaughlin (via the 20BooksTo50k Facebook group), CEO Kris Austin shared that Draft2Digital‘s catalogue has grown from roughly 2.3 million ISBNs to over 4 million since 2022. Most of this growth is contributed to spam books, which have become easier and quicker to produce since LLMs crawled from their lairs. He also noted that Draft2Digital now declines as much as 70% of submissions. As a counter-attack, they’ve introduced two new fees: a one-time account activation fee, and an annual fee for accounts earning under $100 USD per year.
We understand the strategy. Kingdoms need to protect their ecosystems, and low-performing accounts don’t contribute much to their treasury. But the annual fee, as a deterrant, doesn’t just keep the beast away; it risks locking out new and slow-growing authors as well. Most writers still building an audience won’t make the minimum payout threshold in a year. Adding a recurring fee means some may never see their earnings at all.
Battles like this are seldom fair or clean. We get that. And to be honest, with all the constant changes across the publishing world, with no sign of it settling down for several years now, we’re a little battle weary. So for now, we’re retreating. As of February 15, 2026, all of our titles have been delisted on Draft2Digital, which means our titles will appear on fewer retailers.
In the meantime, our titles remain available through Amazon, Kobo, and Indigo, and can still be requested through libraries that use OverDrive.
We wish Draft2Digital all the best in their fight for quality! And should the publishing world shift again—or our sales increase—we’ll be watching and waiting for the right time to return.
