It’s the first Wednesday of the month and time for another posting of the Insecure Writer’s Support Group.

I’m still at #39 on the list.

Let’s start with what pivoting means:

I feel so discouraged by Draft2Digital’s new policy.

Haven’t heard about it yet? Learn more here:

And that’s from a guy who was integral to D2D’s formation…

So this is why I feel discouraged, angry and disillusioned:

They already take a percentage of royalties to be paid for the privilege of using their services. Now they have placed a “poor tax” of $12 on people who make less than $100 in royalties (after they’ve taken their cut). Now, as someone who is happy to reach only one reader a year, this is telling me that I’m just not good enough because I don’t write to market.

(I have several pennames. One sells an average of four books a year, not even making $12 in royalties. One sells well enough, but by the time they’ve taken their cut of my royalties, I’ll still have to pay them $12 because it makes it’s $100 but not after they’ve taken their cut… Another penname sells enough to cover all of this, but still: it leaves a sour taste in my mouth.)

Making me pay to publish without adding value and taking/withholding royalties is vanity publishing, isn’t it? [What is a Vanity Press? A Guide to Vanity Publishing] Either take your cut from the royalties or have a service fee, not both.

And after the way I’ve been treated by their paperback department this year (calling writing prompts I’ve been working on for over twenty years low-quality, despite it being a quarterly seller; telling me I’m trying to game the system to get books published by formatting my books using typographical white space to up page numbers, which just shows that they know nothing about interior book design as this is an important and active design element—not just “empty” space—that improves comprehension, reduces cognitive load, and increases focus by separating elements), I’m just not in a good place to want to stay with them.

This is a company that I’ve been telling other indies to use for years. I’ve been talking them up every chance I got.

Now this barrier to entry placed on all authors from low-income quadrants will make publishing an elitist thing again. This includes people from developing nations (we pay a lot to get $1 and it’s better to buy food for a week than pay to play).

They say it’s to keep AI slop out. But how many of those top sellers on certain platforms aren’t proudly stating that they use AI to “help” them write? And how many of those “authors” are being targeted by this “poor tax”? This is penalising real authors, not scammers.

Look, I get the new sign-up fee. It will keep people who aren’t serious from opening several accounts and spamming the industry. But this isn’t on the side of authors. And, for me, this broke trust. If they’d said that they’ll stop taking a percentage of royalties and that everyone has to pay a fixed fee of say $20 per year to use their services, I would’ve been on board. But targeting only a certain part of the population… Just, no.

I know, it’s been a bit of a rant.

One shouldn’t complain if you don’t have a solution.

So, what will I have to do if I’m moving away from them:

• Get ISBNs for every book from the NL.
• Get a new way to format eBooks, preferably for free to not up production costs. [Calibre is the recommended tool for years now.]
• Figure out how to get books into digital libraries on my own.
• Set up direct stores and the funnels to them. (Learn how to do this properly.)
• Figure out how to get books into stores that weren’t available without D2D before Covid.
• Research other aggregators. [PublishDrive seems to offer more stores, more services, and more support. Also has the ALLi badge on their site.]
• “Take the money and run!” Meaning, delist books from D2D.
• Educate people to buy direct.
• Create a new business plan to make this work. (More education? Search YouTube.)

And now that my heart is beating so fast from anger, I’ll need to go meditate to feel better and find my centre.

Let’s deny money and power to those who make arbitrary rules that limit us. [Kevin Tumlinson said this first in his video linked above.]

Vive la révolution!

The best revolution song… (Bringing some levity.)

In South Africa, we toyi-toyi when something is unjust. This goes back to protesting against Apartheid. Not sure how to do that digitally… (The video is some comic relief.)

Successful businesses pivot, changing tactics while staying true to their core purpose. I think I’ll take deep breaths and figure out what this will mean for my business as an authorpreneur. (While still hearing the call for change and freedom deep within my soul.) Leading me right into my rebuilding era…

I’ve already updated my website header, email and YouTube. I’ll have to figure out what this will mean for my other brands and other places one can find me online.

What do you think of this change in policy of D2D? Are you going to continue working with them? How do you publish your books? Have you pivoted in your writing career?