A couple of years back, Smashwords and Draft 2 Digital merged. The word was that the merge wouldn't affect the present authors that Smashwords had and that my books would eventually be transferred to Draft 2 Digital (D2D). About a year or so later, my books were transferred and things went back to normal.
About a year ago, I received an email from D2D saying that they will be charging $12 for accounts (authors) that earn less than $100 per year. I don't earn $100 a year, which meant that I would eventually be paying $12 every year if I don't get my sales up. I decided to wait and see. My sales might suddenly go up and I could pay the $12 easily. It didn't.
A week ago, I received an email from D2D saying that they had deducted $12 from my account because my sales was below the $100 threshold. Unfortunately, my account did not have $12 in it. It had been already sent to me some time ago. So now, my account has less than $0 in it. It's negative.
I sat around thinking about what to do. I also did some Google searching to find out what other people were saying or doing about the new fees. Nobody liked it but some said it was okay. Obviously, those peole were earning more than a $100 a year. Others were so enraged that they simply closed their accounts. However, I did learn the reason why D2D was doing this.
There has been a proliferation of AI created ebooks and these are of very low quality. These "authors" were creating hundreds of books and flooding D2D's systems so D2D decided to make it unprofitable for these "authors" to continue submitting these "AI slop" by charging these fees (there's also a $20 fee for new authors).
The problem is, these fees are hurting authors like me, authors who are honest, hard working writers, who refuse to let AI do their writing for them.
D2D said I could do one of two things. I could close my account or I could delist my books. Delisting removes my books from the bookshelves and I would not longer be charged the $12 fee. My dilemma, however, is that, since my books are no longer being sold, I won't be earning anything. And if I don't earn, I will definitely not be able to pay the $12 fee. It's the classic "no win" situation.
Delisting means I still have an account. It's just that my books are stagnant, not moving, not earning. I'm thinking, should I just go look for someone else to sell my books? It certainly looks like the only recourse open to me.
But I'm not going to do anything that drastic yet. I'll wait and see if D2D will change its policy because of the outcry. I don't know how long I need to wait, I'll just have to wait and see.
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