Let’s wait and see…
While the Biden administration is worried about the traditional publishing behemoth Penguin Random House swallowing up Simon and Schuster in yet another monopolistic merger, questions about mergers might be occurring to self-published aka indie authors regarding the merger of Draft2Digital (D2D) and Smashwords (SW) ebook publishers. The first has a lot of hidden, sneakiness about it; the second is more open and is a non-cash merger, a joining of forces to promote self- and small press published authors and their books who use their aggregating features.
First, let me remind readers what D2D and SW are not: They’re not Amazon! That’s a very important detail. Amazon is just another possible retailer for D2D and SW. (I say that for SW only because, with the merger, they will use them that way, even though up until now they just sell .mobi formatted ebooks that are not available on Amazon…without DRM! I hate DRM, by the way. It’s Bezos channeling Jobs by trying to make their products incompatible with everyone else’s.) Moreover, Amazon does not distribute ebooks to anyone! (They only pretend to be traditional publishers using subsidiaries like Thomas Mercer Amazon is just a huge retailer, a shoddy Walmart on steroids, and only one of many retailers that sells books.)
What D2D and SW both do is distribute to other retailers. They provide self-published authors as well as small publishers an easy path to “go wide,” i.e., follow that tried-and-true retail advice that the more retail outlets a product appears in, the more sales that product will have! Both D2D and SW distribute to affiliated retailers (like B&N, Kobo, and so forth) as well as many well-known library and lending services. They are “aggregators” in the sense that they collect proceeds from the sales at these affiliates and send them to the book’s authors or publishers. Yes, they take their cut, but authors and small publishers would go nuts trying to do all that aggregation. (Their affiliates take a cut too, but nothing like Amazon does!)
There’s bound to be some growing pains with the D2D and SW merger, though. For example, will this affect D2D’s promised rollout of print book production? (It’s currently in beta-testing mode, but it’s been that way for far too long!) Will they offer some help to authors and small publishers with PR and marketing? (No publisher does much of that now.) Editing services? Book cover design?
Let’s wait and see how it all shakes out!
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“Esther Brookstone Art Detective.” This series is seven novels strong now, and I’m working on the eighth novel, The Klimt Connection. (A short preview is found in book seven.) Novels in the series have different publishing histories. The first two, Rembrandt’s Angel and Son of Thunder, were published by Penmore Press. Book three, Death on the Danube, was released by Carrick Publishing. (These first three novels have ebook and print versions.) Novels four and five, Palettes, Patriots, and Prats and Leonardo and the Quantum Code, were released by Draft2Digital. Novels six and seven, Defanging the Red Dragon and Intolerance, are free PDF downloads found on my “Free Stuff & Contests” web page, and book eight, The Klimt Connection, will probably be with Draft2Digital/Smashwords! Except for the free PDFs and book eight, you can find all these novels at all reliable online booksellers (that excludes Amazon in many cases). This series is perfect for binge-reading. Please don’t neglect Esther Brookstone, a 21st century agile and less doddering incarnation of Christie’s Miss Marple. Her obsessions to right wrongs and look out for innocent victims will provide you with many reading adventures.
Around the world and to the stars! In libris libertas!
