So, after moving everything along by an hour on my daily schedule, the dog decided we were getting up at the old regular time anyway. We tried to resist, but in the end he won. He can be very persuasive when he puts his mind to it.
I fed him, I made us both a hot drink (me and the poet not me and the dog), and I fed the birds. Over my dirty cuppa I updated my health journal. After my moans in yesterday’s blog post about the bathroom scales, they showed a more positive figure. In my first week I’ve lost 1¾lb. I’ll take that, thank you very much.
My reading half-hour turned into a reading 45 minutes, and my housework half-hour turned into just 20 minutes, which meant we went out early for our dog walk. That meant we were back early, and that gave me a chance to catch up a little bit on the hours I’d lost the day before.
First job was finalising yesterday’s blog post, choosing an image, posting it and sharing it everywhere.
Then I made the mistake of reading the latest news from Draft2Digital and watching the fallout starting to happen all over social media. I really didn’t want to get embroiled in it all as I have work I need to get off my desk. But seeing what some authors are saying about others, I’m shocked, disgusted, saddened. Mostly with those who seem to think struggling indie authors can even afford however many cups of posh coffee the fees are apparently equal to, who are hurling foul-language insults and abuse, and who are, quite frankly, resorting to bullying tactics.
For those not in the know, Draft2Digital have suddenly announced that anyone using their services must now pay fees. This from an organisation that was supposed to give indie and self publishing authors more control over their work at a cost of royalties only. They’ve announced a new $20 set-up fee for new accounts, plus a new $12 annual fee for any account not earning more than $100 in royalties. That’s the basic gist. And their excuse? To reduce AI slop causing them so much extra work and extra storage costs.
What D2D seem to have forgotten is that many accounts with them pre-date the AI revolution and are easily identified. What D2D seem to have forgotten is that those indie authors made D2D what it is today. What D2D seem to have forgotten is that AI can be banned at upload – as others are doing. What D2D seem to have forgotten is that sudden changes like this are likely to push a lot of indie authors back to a platform D2D claimed to be offering an alternative to. What D2D seem to have forgotten is that their service has hardly changed, aka improved, in all the time I’ve been with them.
And what D2D seem to have forgotten is that indie authors earning under $100 in royalties per year probably can’t sustain an extra hit to an already diminishing budget.
The biggest issue for me isn’t that they’re doing it, although it does start to smack of vanity publishing, paying upfront as well as paying royalties. The biggest issue for me isn’t the amount they’re charging.
The biggest issue for me is that they’re targeting those who can ill-afford it, and ONLY those who can ill-afford it.
This is what has annoyed me.
If they needed to bring in extra charges to help their cashflow, why only apply it to those who can’t afford the extra hit? Why not apply it across the board? Or, even better, why not ONLY apply to those earning MORE than, say, $1,000 in royalties?
Or target the large content providers who are causing the problems in the first place. Someone earning under $100 a year probably doesn’t have that many books in circulation. So why are they being singled out and penalised for those uploading multiple AI-generated drivel?
I was already considering removing all of my standalone short stories and only leaving the collections up there. I was already considering removing distribution from some retailers and going direct, due to the lower royalty rates. I was already looking into the likes of Vellum and learning how to format the books myself.
I’ve loved being with D2D. But now I’m teaching myself Vellum. I’ve revived my account with Lulu. I’ve opened an account with IngramSpark. I’m looking at Curios. Heck, I’m even considering going back to the Zon. And I’ve already started to delist the standalone short stories.
Someone somewhere on social media suggested that D2D really isn’t reading the room right now. So my message to D2D is just that: Please, read the room. Please, reconsider, and see if you can’t come up with some other way to pay for the increased data storage to store the files. Find some other way to pay for the extra work you’re doing to weed out the slop.
And that, my friends, is where my head is as I go into the weekend. I hope you have a good one at least.
This post appears on Words Worth Writing, Medium and Patreon.
All excellent points. If they are serious about not wanting AI slop, then that should be part of the agreement with using the platform — no AI.
They’re lying to us, again. I’m hoping, in the coming months, there will be some viable alternatives popping up.
It’s exhausting. It’s all exhausting.
I just can’t believe the horrible things some people, who don’t seem to mind the fees, are saying about those expected to carry the brunt of it, regardless of whether or not they can afford to pay it or choose between that and a skinny fat chocka mocha latte fizz bomb, or whatever they’re called.