Self-Publishing Tips From the Draft2Digital CEO: Covers, Print, Libraries and Not Panicking

When Lisa and I launched our small press this October, I thought I was ready. I had published traditionally, I'd done my research, and I'd read every blog post about distribution I could find. Then I started uploading to the platforms and my brain started to melt. So when Kris Austin, co-founder and CEO of Draft2Digital, joined us on Writers With Wrinkles, we came with questions. Draft2Digital has grown since 2012 to support over 300,000 authors who have released more than 1.1 million titles, so he has seen how things go wrong.

Here's a taste of what he told us.

The mistake that costs you reviews

Asked what first-time authors get wrong, Kris didn't say editing or marketing. He said covers. "One of the number one reasons for bad reviews on books is that they didn't get the book they were expecting to get, and that comes down really to your cover image and your description."

His advice is to look at what's selling in your genre and notice the tropes. A space opera cover will probably have a giant ship in the middle of space. Readers use those signals to find the stories they love. He also reframed something I'd learned the hard way: "Covers are metadata." Your cover, your description, your title and your BISAC categories all work together to help the right reader find you.

Fixing a wrong category

Books end up in the wrong category more often than you'd think, because each retailer maps the industry's standard subject codes to its own internal list. Kris's tip for indie authors is that you can fix it quickly. "We make a change and within a couple hours we've sent it everywhere." Anyone who has tried to get a traditional publisher to change a category knows how big a deal that is.

Two features most authors skip

Kris named two things indie authors leave on the table. The first is print. He pointed out that most readers still want print books, and that something like 80 percent of all book purchases, print and digital, now happen online. With print on demand, "this is not the world we live in anymore" where you have to buy 1,000 copies and stack them in your garage. Draft2Digital's D2D Print is built to take the intimidation out of margins, bleeds and wraparound covers.

The second is pre-orders. If you write a series, put the next book up for pre-order and "you'll be surprised at the extra sales you generate because of the impulse buys." Readers finishing book one can grab book two before they forget about you.

Libraries, even if you're in Kindle Plus

This one surprised me. Authors in Kindle Plus (formerly Kindle Unlimited) can now send their books to libraries through Draft2Digital while staying in the program. Kris says libraries are buying those titles at much higher rates than books from authors who have always been wide. His blunt take: librarians really want indie books.

Scammers, AI and the $20 fee

We also asked about the new activation fee. Kris was candid that he never wanted one. Scammers had started opening 1,000 accounts with one book each, and at times Draft2Digital was blocking more than 70 percent of submitted titles. After the fee, the share of rejected titles dropped to about 20 percent. "The fee is like now $20 for 1,000 accounts, it breaks the business model."

On AI, he called it a tool that speeds up whatever you're already good at: "If you're not good at it, it can make you think you're good at it when you're not."

His advice if you're nervous

Finish the book. Then publish it, and write another. "Don't spend five years researching how to publish a book." And in the words of Douglas Adams, which Kris quoted: don't panic.

Listen to the full conversation

There's much more in the full episode, including how BookTok, Facebook groups and Reddit are changing how readers find books, why bookshop.org might become your new favorite store, and why Germany loves English-language books. Press play on this week's Writers With Wrinkles episode with Kris Austin, and tell us what you're going to try first.