Note: This article has been updated to include responses from Barnes & Noble Press and to correct the date that Draft2Digital’s account setup fee goes into effect.

New policies announced by two popular publishing platforms last week have sparked questions and conversations among the indie author community, both about how these changes will affect their businesses and whether they may signal larger shifts for the publishing industry.  

In a letter posted Tuesday to the Draft2Digital website and sent via email to the platform’s users, Draft2Digital CEO Kris Austin announced the platform would implement two new fees starting next month: a $20 account setup fee for new accounts to the platform and a $12 annual maintenance fee for users earning less than $100 that year from book sales through the site. Previously, the site did not charge users any fees to create an account or use the platform, though it collects a percentage of every sale as a commission. 

The same day, Barnes & Noble Press announced several updates to the site’s policies: a new minimum price for printed books published via the platform, a limit to the number of books an account may list for sale, and a change in the policy regarding publishing public domain works. 

The changes to both sites came as a surprise to many, prompting questions and sparking frustration among some of the platforms’ users. But Austin says Draft2Digital’s changes are a new approach to combating a yearslong challenge faced by the independent publishing platform and an attempt to protect the reputations of indie authors. “Over the last few years, there's been a significant amount of bad actors sending a lot of spam content … and really, what we're seeing is this is starting to harm the actual reputations of indie authors as a whole, as a group,” he says. “What we're starting to see is pushback against indies as a whole, and we think that's unfair … so the fees are primarily targeted around slowing down and deterring these bad actors so that our community of authors can be seen as high integrity.”

New Fees for Draft2Digital Users Aimed at Curbing Spam Content

Draft2Digital’s $20 account setup fee applies to any new accounts created on the site following the announcement. Since Draft2Digital’s inception, Austin says, spammers have tried to publish low-quality books to the platform, but generative AI and automated content farms have made the problem worse. In some recent months, up to 70 percent of the books submitted for publication via the platform have been blocked by Draft2Digital for being low-quality content—which Austin dubs “book spam.” Since spammers often create hundreds of new accounts to flood the platform’s system, Austin hopes the account setup fee will be a deterrent. 

The platform’s annual account maintenance fee is also a result of these spam accounts, helping Draft2Digital flag those accounts that have managed to slip past the site’s quality control. However, Austin says, the fee will also help cover rising costs for maintaining the platform and supporting authors. “We primarily make our revenue from commissions on book sales, and for these books that don't really sell, the costs are still very real,” he says. “So we were asking authors to help in a small way.” 

The $12 fee will go into effect May 14 and will apply to all accounts on the site, though it is waived for those authors who earn $100 or more from their book’s sales in the previous twelve-month period. Fees will be due on each account’s anniversary date, and sales data is calculated from the same dates. 

Austin says the annual fee, which amounts to $1 per month, is waived for authors who reach the $100 threshold because the commissions earned from those authors’ sales are enough to support their accounts. “We looked at, ‘What is the right threshold so that we can feel like this is something we can maintain?’ And that's where the dollar value came out,” he says. The team also considered per-title fees and raising commission rates but decided the flat annual fee was the least harmful option for the site’s users.

However, the decision to waive the fee for higher-earning accounts upset some authors, who saw the fee as a penalty for those whose books were not selling as well. Author Don DeBon writes that though he understands the need for the fees, the fact that the fee only applies to authors selling fewer books “seems like punishment.” 

“Many of us don't do that many sales on their platform … [which is] forcing us to consider leaving,” he writes. “Also I suspect that now that Draft2Digital has done this, if it works out for them … other platforms will follow adding similar fees.”

Other authors have been upset at the implementation of fees on the site at all, but author Skye MacKinnon encourages authors to take a different perspective. “D2D [Draft2Digital] is a business—yes, they're pro-indie and on our sides, but they also have to make money to pay their staff and to innovate/improve their services,” she writes. 

“We primarily make our revenue from commissions on book sales, and for these books that don't really sell, the costs are still very real.”
—Kris Austin, Draft2Digital CEO

Draft2Digital’s annual maintenance fee only applies to authors distributing their books through the platform; Austin notes that the site’s other features, such as formatting tools, royalty splitting tools, and Books2Read universal book links, remain free to use. He suggests authors wishing to avoid the maintenance fee delist their titles rather than fully delete their account to maintain access to these tools and avoid an account setup fee if they decide to return to the platform in the future. 

Draft2Digital users can find their maintenance fee date and payment status on their Account Status page. More sales data is available from the raw sales data statements on the My Reports page. Users can also delist their books by clicking “Mass Remove All Books from All Stores” in the Multi-Book Actions page of their account’s settings.

Barnes & Noble Press Updates Policies to Protect Content Quality

Although Draft2Digital’s letter listed more specific concerns about the integrity of content being published on the site, the announcement by Barnes & Noble Press said its updated policies were also “designed to protect independent authors as well as maintain the quality of the content on our platform,” according to the post.

“In some cases, very large volumes of low-quality listings from aggregators or publishers have made it more difficult for readers to find relevant, quality content,” writes Barnes & Noble Press eCommerce Senior Manager Julie Braunschweiger.

According to the announcement, starting April 22, Barnes & Noble Press will not allow the creation of new print listings for less than $14.99. Starting May 14, authors with printed books published via the platform must set prices to $14.99 or higher; any titles that do not meet this requirement will be removed from sale. Additionally, starting May 14, authors will not be allowed to list more than one hundred titles for sale through the Barnes & Noble Press site; authors must remove titles from sale, or Barnes & Noble Press will remove titles at the company’s discretion to bring accounts in line with the new policy. Finally, Barnes & Noble Press will no longer allow the sale of public domain works on the platform.

Although MacKinnon understands the need for the policy changes on both platforms, she writes that she views the updates to Barnes & Noble “more critically.” She currently has a backlist of around 150 books and publishes anthologies and other multi-author projects from her account. She also publishes shorter children’s books under a pen name, and she worries bringing the price of these titles to $14.99 will make it harder for readers to afford her books and prevent her from competing with traditionally published titles. 

“I see why they're doing this, to fight bookspammers publishing unedited AI-generated books at great volume, but it is affecting authors with large backlists that have been built over many years,” she writes. “I feel like they could have got in touch with affected authors before setting a limit.”

Braunschweiger writes that the print price minimum was set “in response to increased shipping and freight costs, which have impacted overall business economics for Barnes & Noble.” However, she writes, authors may be granted exceptions to the pricing limitations on a case-by-case basis.

A separate post on Barnes & Noble Press’s FAQ page suggests authors with more than one hundred titles reach out to the platform’s ebook merchant team via email at eBookSales@bn.com to be considered for an exception. MacKinnon says she’s heard of authors being granted exceptions to the limit and has contacted the platform about her account, though she has yet to hear back. 

“Instead of focusing on the negative, I'm trying to encourage authors to instead focus on improving their sales.”
—Skye MacKinnon, author

Barnes & Noble Press’s updated policies won’t affect those distributing their books to the site through a third-party platform, such as Draft2Digital or IngramSpark. However, Austin says the changes are a sign other platforms are experiencing the same challenges with spam accounts and low-quality books as Draft2Digital. 

“Barnes & Noble doing what they're doing, especially the hundred-book limit per account—it shows that there is strain being placed on the publishing industry by these nefarious actors. And you're going to continue to see retailers, distributors like us and others in the industry, trying to figure out how to combat that strain,” he says. 

Some authors feel these platforms’ new policies punish authors for the actions of spammers and other bad actors. But MacKinnon hopes authors will view the shift differently. “Instead of focusing on the negative, I'm trying to encourage authors to instead focus on improving their sales to go past that $100 a year level.” MacKinnon shared a list of tips authors could use to improve their Draft2Digital sales on the Wide for the Win platform following the company’s announcement, such as encouraging readers to request their books at local libraries and updating their books’ metadata. She also suggests authors using Barnes & Noble Press use the site’s promotional opportunities and reach out to the platform if they’re concerned about the hundred-title limit.  

Independent authors have worked hard to build a relationship with retailers and trust within the larger publishing industry; Austin hopes authors can understand the need for changes to Draft2Digital’s policies, and that the new policies on both platforms will deter spammers and reassure retailers of the integrity of independently published titles. 

“Indies have earned their place in this industry,” Austin says. “And it'll be on the indie community to help make sure that that doesn't get damaged going forward.”