Tools & Tips to Maximize Your Publishing Potential
IN THIS ISSUE:
Twelve D2D Features You May Not Know About: If you ever wondered if you're taking advantage of all D2D has to offer, this article is for you.
Recent SPIs & Upcoming Events: A schedule of dates and events you should know about with links to recent and upcoming Self Publishing Insiders episodes.
Indie Bestseller Lists: February 2026's top 10 lists for Fiction and Nonfiction in ebook and print.
Twelve D2D Features You May Not Know About
As you know, Draft2Digital develops tools to help you publish more efficiently, distribute wider, reach more readers and manage it all more effectively. Sometimes, however, we hear from authors who had no idea we offered this tool or that tool, even if they've been with us for years. So, to ensure you’re in-the-know, we present 12 D2D Features You May Not Know About:
1) Mass Opt-In Options - Whenever we announce a new retail partnership, like we did last month with Bookshop.org, you’ll see a handy pop-up the next time you log into your account. The pop-up will ask you if you want to add all your eligible books to the new store.
That’s great. But sometimes you log in to check sales, or make an update, or some other pertinent task, and don’t have the time to consider the idea. And if it’s a platform you’re unfamiliar with, you might not want to make a decision on the spot. So, you close the pop-up and move on. What you may not know is that you can always mass opt-in your books at ANY time.
If you've held back from distributing to certain retail partners, you don't have to opt in your books one at a time—you can mass opt in to any of D2D's roster of distribution partners in a single move. Libraries, subscription services, digital storefronts: they're all available to you, and getting your books everywhere is as straightforward as a few clicks.
To get there, go to Account -->Multi-Book Actions --> Mass Add Ebooks to a Store. Once you're there, you can see how many of your books are eligible for various platforms and then click a single button to mass opt them in for each platform. The following screen shot will show you how it looks:
2) Customizable Interior Book Design Templates - D2D created nearly two dozen handy, professional-quality interior book design templates based on high level book categories/genres to help authors select a look that’s right for them. Once you’ve selected your template, you can customize additional parameters such as using drop cap or phrase cap openings for chapters and sections. With our print book interiors, you’ll have options such as placement of headers, footers and page numbers, scene break decoration additions, starting chapters on the right-hand page, and widow and orphan control.
Based on author requests, we added seven templates to include poetry—a format that needs specific layout care and has historically been underserved by self-publishing tools.
3) Assetless Preorders - If you have an upcoming book launch and want to take advantage of preorders to create additional buzz, we allow assetless preorders for many of our retail partners. This means you can get virtual shelf space at major online retailers even before you have the final edits on your book, or cover art, completed. We'll remind you, in your dashboard and via email messaging, to upload your final manuscript and cover image at least 10 business days before the book's scheduled release. This ensures we deliver your finalized book on time to our partners for release day. To learn more, check out our blog post about how to use preorders for a more successful book launch.
4) Account Sharing (for assistants, partners, etc.) - Our account sharing feature makes it easy to let someone else—an assistant, a literary agent, a business partner—access your account without handing over your personal login credentials. This protects your privacy, because you can choose what they can see and/or update.
To enable Account Sharing, first go to Account --> Advanced User Optionsand make sure that you have the Enable Account Sharing option checked. Then go to Account --> Account Sharing. Enter the email address of the person you want to share access to your account with and check the appropriate box for access to sales data or book management.
5) Payment Splitting - For collaborative projects (where you are a co-author with one or more people), we allow you to set up revenue splits across ebooks, print, and even audio (via our digital narration option with Apple Books), so that everyone involved gets paid their share automatically rather than through awkward manual transfers. We'll also send each contributor their own end-of-year tax forms, taking all that heavy lifting away. You choose the percentage each author gets and can customize that by format.
6) Territorial Pricing - When you enter your U.S. dollar (USD) price, we automatically convert the price into 16 different currencies. We also round to the nearest/cleanest localized price to help your book appear more “normalized” to different global marketplaces. You still have the control to override the automatic pricing however you like, but this is a handy time-saving feature. The following screen shot shows you what it looks like:
7) Price Scheduling - If you're planning a price promotion across multiple retailers, you can set a promotional price in advance and let the system roll it all out at 12:01 AM local time on the retailers, and then have it revert automatically when the promo window you set closes. This is meant to save you time and worry when participating in various promotional opportunities via platforms like BookBub, Written Word Media, or the promotions we offer via our retail and library partners (see #9).
8) Sharing Isn't Just Caring, It's Earning - Did you know D2D has a referral program that lets you earn a percentage when authors you recommend sign up and publish through D2D? If you're already championing D2D to your author friends, you may as well earn a little something back for those conversations.
To create your own customized affiliate link, go to Accounts --> Refer-a-Friend
9) Merchandising Exposure to Retailers and Libraries - D2D has a dedicated, full-time Author Promotions Coordinator whose entire job is wrangling promotional opportunities with retail and library partners on your behalf. Whenever we learn of a new opportunity that might pertain to your genre, we want you to know about it. That’s why, in 2025 alone, we sent 46 unique promotional invitations to D2D authors, which led to 29,450 title submissions. Of all those titles submitted, we successfully placed 18,570 of them in merchandising promotions with our partners. You can sign up to be notified of upcoming opportunities atd2d.tips/d2dpromoform. For tips on how to work with our promotions team, check out this blog post.
10) DIY Marketing Tools - Beyond curated promotions, we offer a rich set of DIY marketing tools. Books2Read universal book links, for example, allow you to use single hyperlink for all the online stores that sell your books. This means readers can find your book at whatever store they prefer with automated geo-tagging, so your reader gets to the proper version of a store by country and currency. Another elegant Books2Read feature is Author Pages, which can complement your existing author website or serve as your home base if you don’t have a website. Author Pages are fully customizable and allow you to create hero images (like the cover of an upcoming book on preorder), create carousels to showcase multiple books or series, add newsletter signup links, and even have D2D notify your readers about new releases on your behalf.
11) Convenient, Cost-Saving Cover Support - When it comes to publishing a paperback book, paying for a full wraparound cover image (front, spine, back) can be a expensive. Fortunately, D2D Print makes it easy and budget friendly. Simply upload your ebook's cover image and we’ll generate a machine-perfect cover wrap for you, with multiple customization options.
If you don't yet have a cover image and can't seem to find an affordable option, did you know D2D runs BookCovers.com—the world’s largest pre-made book cover marketplace? More than 60,000 pre-made, customizable covers by professional designers are searchable by genre or keyword to help you find the perfect cover that you and your readers will love.
12) Smashwords Store Perks - Did you know the Smashwords store pays among the best royalty rates of any major online retail platform? You earn 75% on ebooks priced $2.99 or higher. For ebooks priced between $0.99 and $2.99, you earn 40%.
One of the longest running Smashwords store perks is Smashwords Coupons, but that doesn’t mean all authors have heard of them or put them to work. Available through your Smashwords Dashboard, you can create unique promotions any time you want at the Smashwords store. For example, you can create private coupons for your street team or a book club. If you want more visibility, you can create public coupons so that your discounted book(s) are visible to all Smashwords store visitors. You're in control, so you can limit the number of coupon redemptions or make them unlimited. You can also keep the coupon you create open indefinitely, or set it for a short amount of time to create a sense of urgency and excitement among your readers. Oh, and if your public coupon starts generating sales, you might find your discounted book on the Featured Special Deals shelf on Smashwords' home page.
To give Smashwords Coupons a try, log into your account and go to Account --> Smashwords Dashboard --> Coupons.
Recent SPIs & Upcoming Events
Join us live online every Thursday at 12:00 p.m. Central for our Self Publishing Insiders (SPI) show and subscribe to our YouTube channel.
Topics range from craft, to marketing & promotion, to layout & design, to business strategy, avoiding burnout, and more. D2D team members will be right there with you in the comments, live, ready to answer just about anything.
The monthly indie bestseller lists are a compilation of the top-selling indie fiction and nonfiction titles, by revenue, for the most recently completed month. Sales data is compiled from across our entire global retail and library partner network. If an author has more than one title eligible for the list, only the highest performing title from that author will be included. This ensures high-performing titles receive the accolades they deserve, while providing up-and-coming authors the visibility they have earned.
