I’ve been recently publishing my E-books for a couple of months with Draft2Digital. However, I’ve started to avoid signing up for Amazon KDP because, their guidelines are strict, and they always use DRM for all of their E-books; they’re been also criticized because, they’ve condoned production of foie gras,–documented by Mercy For Animals. There’s lots of controversies on amazon.com (according to Wikipedia).
When you first sign up for Draft2Digital self-publishing service, the interface isn’t cluttered at all. I tried it out with my Chromebook,–while my screen-reader is running. Your account is active right away!
You start off with an empty list of books. All you have to do just add a book what you’ve just written. When you first hit the button to add a book, the wizard begins. You start off with uploading your book file. I’ve first tried a Google Document, but it’s not supported. Then I tried a regular DOC file instead, and it works. I’ve also writing a title and description for my E-book. I’ve started off with small E-books, then I started larger versions later on.
I’ve chosen categories for my E-book. The ISBN is automatically generated as I go to the next page of the wizard.
The layouts page contains information about your Chapter layout. Well, I made a custom copyright page before I hit Ctrl-Enter to divide the page. I’ve also added a title page, and an about the author page. I haven’t written a teaser page.
You can download and view your proof for your work. If you are satisfied; go to the next page of the wizard. If you are using a screen-reader, Chromevox on a Chromebook, use the word navigation to activate the checkbox that is hiding. Well, I’ve managed to activate it. I contacted support, and they’re working on an accessibility feature for screen-reader users.
The fun part of publishing your book is setting up the price. You can set it as a free E-book if you want.
You can choose any of these platforms that you want your book to be listed. I don’t place my work at Apple because, they have DRM everywhere, and there’s also a criticism of Apple Inc. However, I’ve chosen other platforms.
If you are done setting your E-book up, the confirmation dialog will appear. If you are an original creator of this book, select it from the list. Hit the check box, and hit the publish button to complete the wizard.
It’s optional to publish your work via paperback if you want, but you must have at least 24 pages to do so.
Amazon KDP relies on their proprietary formats that are defective by design. Risking this platform is not for me because, I don’t want DRM on my book; treating readers like criminals is considered bad reputation!
They also have high levels of sensorship, and dictatorship. Who in the right mind to have high levels of sensorship? To me it’s barberric.
That’s why I’ve chosen Draft2Digital as a flexible choice for me.
Setting up a payment method is easy, all you have to do just fill out the required fields, According to their FAQs; for check method, you need a mailing address. For Paypal, they need your E-mail address.
Editing your about the author page is easy to use.
Their site usually has their systems running on weekdays. In the future, they’re going to run longer, it’s a pretty young site, but it’s amazing.
Which platform you are using? Feel free to leave comments below.