Self Publishing Books | Kevin Tumlinson of Draft2Digital

About this video

Dale interviews Kevin Tumlinson, best-selling thriller author and Director of Marketing for Draft2Digital, the aggregator distributor. Tumlinson explains Draft2Digital is browser-based and operating-system agnostic, its free interior layout/formatting tool can be used even if you do not distribute through them, and they earn money only from a 10% cut of distribution royalties. He contrasts that flexibility and lack of exclusivity with KDP: authors can pick and choose retailers, go direct to some and use Draft2Digital for others, and consolidate sales data. He discusses his own path from writing professionally from age 12, a bad traditional contract, self-publishing from 2008, and building to more than 40 books, mostly sci-fi/fantasy plus the Dan Kotler thrillers. He also covers the Findaway Voices audiobook partnership — non-exclusive distribution, author-controlled pricing, no forced royalty-split/7-year ACX-style lock-in, and the $49 admin fee waived when coming through Draft2Digital — and Draft2Digital’s new Refer-a-Friend program, launched October 3 in the interview, which pays referrers 10% of Draft2Digital’s own 10% for one year, taken from the company, not the referred author.

Key takeaways

• Write every day to become prolific: even 500 words a day is iterative progress; Tumlinson says he typically drafts around 2,500 words per hour relaxed and about 5,000 when pushing.
• Draft2Digital charges no upfront author fee and takes 10% of distribution royalties, so it only makes money when the author sells a book.
• You do not have to distribute through Draft2Digital to use its free tools, including its browser-based interior layout tool, and there is no exclusivity if you do distribute.
• With Findaway Voices, unlike the ACX model discussed, authors can keep rights, avoid a royalty-split narrator ownership arrangement and 7-year exclusivity, pick distribution channels, and set their own prices outside Audible.
• Refer-a-Friend pays the referrer 10% of Draft2Digital’s royalty share for one year per referred author, with Draft2Digital cutting its own share rather than reducing the author’s royalties.

Episode details: published October 11, 2017 · 47:24 long. Summary written by Self Growth Videos from the episode itself. Business results and any income figures mentioned are Dale L. Roberts’s own claims, shared for education — they are not typical or guaranteed.

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