Going wide: Draft2Digital, Kobo, Apple, Google Play, Bookshop.org

By R. S. Breed · Updated Sep 28, 2026

"Going wide" means selling your ebook on more than one store instead of keeping it exclusive to Amazon through Kindle Unlimited. If you've decided wide is for you (or want to see what it involves first), this guide covers the main places to sell, what they charge, and whether to go direct or use an aggregator.

If you haven't decided yet, start with our guide Kindle Unlimited or wide? You can't have the same ebook in KU and on these stores at the same time.

Direct or aggregator?

There are two ways to reach the stores.

Direct: you open an account with each store and upload your book to each one separately.

Aggregator: you upload once to a distributor such as Draft2Digital, which sends your book to many stores and pays you in one place. It takes a cut for doing so.

	Direct	Aggregator
Money	You keep the store's full royalty	The aggregator takes a share
Effort	One account, one upload and one set of reports per store	One upload, one dashboard, one payment
Control	Full access to each store's own tools	Some store tools and promotions may only be available direct
Reach	Only the stores you sign up to	Includes smaller stores and library platforms you might not reach alone

Many wide authors mix the two: they go direct to the biggest stores and use an aggregator for everything else. You can do that as long as you don't send the same book to one store twice. When you set up the aggregator, untick any store you already publish to directly.

Draft2Digital

Draft2Digital (D2D) is the best-known ebook aggregator. It distributes to the major stores, smaller retailers and library platforms (its FAQ names OverDrive, cloudLibrary, Hoopla and BorrowBox), and it has owned Smashwords since 2022.

What it costs

Commission: D2D takes about 10% of the retail price of each sale, deducted before it pays you.
Activation fee (new accounts): since D2D announced it in April 2026, new accounts that want to publish pay a one-off, non-refundable US$20. Accounts that already existed don't pay it.
Annual maintenance fee: US$12 a year, based on your account anniversary, unless you earned at least $100 in net royalties over the previous 12 months. D2D's FAQ says accounts with no titles in distribution aren't charged it.

D2D said the fees respond to a big rise in automated, low-quality account creation and content farms, and to rising compliance and security costs. For a new author with one book and modest sales, the $12 fee may apply, so budget for it.

What you get

One upload and one dashboard for many stores, including library platforms.
One payment instead of a dozen.
Access to Bookshop.org ebooks (see below).

Smashwords store rates

Smashwords is now part of D2D. From 1 January 2026, the Smashwords store pays (as a percentage of list price):

Price	Royalty
$2.99 and above	75%
Below $2.99	40%

Kobo Writing Life

Kobo is one of the larger ebook stores outside Amazon. Kobo Writing Life is its free direct publishing platform.

Kobo says it doesn't require authors to sign exclusivity deals.
Going direct gives you Kobo's own reports and tools rather than an aggregator's.
Kobo Plus is Kobo's reading subscription. Unlike Kindle Unlimited, it's not exclusive: you can be in Kobo Plus and sell everywhere else. Kobo's help centre says you opt in from the Rights and Distribution tab of your Kobo Writing Life dashboard, and for each book you can choose all territories or only some. D2D also lets you opt in to Kobo Plus if you reach Kobo through D2D.
Kobo says Kobo Plus pays for every minute read, rather than by pages.

Kobo's help centre says you earn 70% of list price when your ebook is priced at US$2.99 or A$2.99 or more (thresholds differ by currency, such as £1.99 or €1.99), and 45% below that. Kobo says there's no price cap on the 70% rate, so it also applies to an expensive box set. Check the current rates before you set prices.

Apple Books

You can publish to Apple Books directly or through an aggregator.

Royalty: Apple says it pays 70% on every ebook, regardless of price.
No file delivery fees, unlike KDP's 70% option.
No price matching requirements, and you can offer books free.
To publish direct, Apple Books for Authors says you create an iTunes Connect account, and it links to Apple's own steps.

Going direct gives you Apple's daily sales reports and full control of your pricing. Going through D2D is simpler if you don't want another account to manage.

Google Play Books

Google Play Books takes ebooks direct through Google Play Books Partner Center.

Royalty: 70% of list price in more than 60 countries, including Australia, New Zealand, the UK, the US and Canada, once you accept Google's updated terms of service in Partner Center.
Elsewhere: Google says its default split is 52%, both for partners who haven't accepted the updated terms and for sales in certain countries. It lists Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, the Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Vietnam as countries where you keep your current split rather than 70%.
Google says it doesn't charge fees on the 70% split, and there's no longer a price band you need to stay within to get it.

Accept the updated terms in Partner Center before your first sale. Google says the 70% split starts within two days of accepting.

Bookshop.org

Bookshop.org sells books online on behalf of independent bookshops. It launched ebooks in the US in January 2025 and in the UK in October 2025.

Since 4 February 2026, Draft2Digital has distributed self-published ebooks to Bookshop.org in the US and UK. If you're on D2D, you need to opt in to Bookshop.org; D2D doesn't add it for you.

Why it's interesting:

Bookshop.org passes 100% of its ebook profit to the independent bookshop a sale is made through. When a buyer doesn't choose a shop, the profit is shared among participating shops.
It gives readers who prefer to support local bookshops a way to buy your ebook.
Indie bookshops are growing in the US: the American Booksellers Association's 2025 annual report says 605 new bricks-and-mortar, pop-up and mobile bookshops opened across the US that year.

Bookshop.org is a small ebook channel for now. Treat it as a goodwill channel that might grow, not a main income source.

Pros and cons at a glance

Option	Best for	Watch out for
Draft2Digital	Reaching many stores and libraries with one upload	About 10% commission; US$20 activation (new accounts); US$12 annual fee under $100 earnings
Kobo direct	Kobo's own tools and reports	45% royalty below US$2.99 / A$2.99
Apple direct	70% at any price, no delivery fees	Another account and upload to maintain
Google Play direct	70% in most major markets	Accept the updated terms, or you stay on the default 52%
Bookshop.org (via D2D)	Supporting indie bookshops	Small channel so far

A sensible first setup

If this is your first wide book and you're nervous about juggling accounts, this setup keeps it manageable:

KDP direct for Amazon (you're almost certainly already there).
Kobo Writing Life direct, so you can use Kobo's own tools and manage Kobo Plus yourself.
Draft2Digital for Apple, Google Play, Bookshop.org, libraries and smaller stores. Leave Kobo and Amazon out of your D2D store choices so nothing is duplicated. Kobo asks direct authors not to send the same book to Kobo through another distributor.

Later, once you're comfortable, you can move Apple or Google Play to direct accounts to keep D2D's 10% on those sales. Check first how moving stores works with D2D and the store, so the book doesn't disappear from sale during the switch.

Things that trip people up

Duplicate listings. The same book sent to one store both directly and through an aggregator. Keep a simple list of which store gets which book by which route.
Different prices everywhere. Keep prices consistent across stores. Amazon may match a lower price it finds elsewhere, and on KDP's 70% option that reduces your royalty.
Forgetting KU. If a book is still in KDP Select, it can't be on any of these stores until its 90-day term ends. KDP Select renews automatically unless you opt out before the renewal date.
Expecting fast results. Wide builds slowly. Give each book several months, and a proper promotion or two, before judging a store.

Sources

Platforms change their rules often. If something here is out of date, tell us in the forum and we'll fix it.