NEW TECH ENABLES EBOOK AND PRINT BOOK PUBLICATION AND DISTRIBUTION AT ZERO COST.

I came upon it by accident. I had been handing over more than a few dollars for eBook formatting and covers. Amazon’s print book service is free but time consuming, with the added cost of print ready covers to their specifications.

I noticed D2D during a Google search. The letters stand for draft to digital. The site provides eBook and print book creation, publication, and distribution at zero upfront cost. They take a percentage of book sales revenue. I have searched the Net and not found another service like it.

I will run through the production of an eBook on D2D to illustrate the simplicity and speed the website provides. I start with a Word document. The simplicity kicks in right here at the beginning. All I need do is type the text. No page breaks, no paragraph indents, no page numbering or any other preparation. The chapter titles must be in bold at the centre of the page. That’s it, ready to upload to D2D.

A cover does have to be provided. D2D accepts Amazon’s standard 1800 x 2700. I do my own covers at no cost on Lunapic or Pixlr x. Both are simplified versions of Photoshop and Gimp, and free to use online. With a little practise a quality cover can be created in an hour.

I upload my cover to D2D and then the Word document. I click various boxes for an automatically generated copyright page and heading page. I can choose to have a list of all books I have published with D2D at the back of the book. Some other choices regarding my Bio are also available. I fill in a description of the book and select categories and search tags. That done I click submit at the bottom of the page and the software goes into action.

Within 30 seconds I am presented with a fully formatted eBook. Chapters are perfectly laid out and decorative capital letters are placed at suitable parts of the book. The complete book is presented for my approval. On the approval page I have a choice of four interior designs for the book. I can sample each one on the book before making my choice. Before I Ok the book, D2D allows me to download a free Epub, Mobi and PDF version of the book. That done I click the box to accept the book and the publication process starts automatically.

A notice quickly appears telling me the book is now published, and distribution has begun to the online retailers allied with D2D. D2D distributes to Kobo, Apple, Barnes and Noble, Amazon, Tolino, 24Symbols, Scribd, Vivlio (in Europe) Hoopla, as well as a number of Library services and small retailer distributors such as Baker and Taylor. I then set a price for the book and can immediately see how much D2D gets for a book sold, and the amount I receive.

Usually the next day I start to receive emails from D2D confirming the acceptance of the book by the various online sellers.

I mentioned Print books at the start of this article. Once the eBook is underway, and the book content is above a certain word count, a notice pops up asking me if I wish to make my book a print book. I click the Yes box. In the time it takes to say, “this is amazing,” The software produces a print ready cover with my bio, photo, and the book description on the back cover. It is then just a matter of approving the book if I am happy to have the same interior design. A message tells me the print book is underway. Print books take about a week of processing before I receive an email confirming publication and distribution. D2D uses Amazon’s print distribution network for its print books. Within a couple of weeks my book appears in Amazon’s vast network of retailers all over the World. I also sell my books on the Smashwords site. I upload the free Epub from D2D to Smashwords, where it is always accepted first time because of the quality of the formatting. D2D also offers a few free quality book marketing tools.