Draft2Digital vs ShelfPublisher

Draft2Digital distributes your book to the stores you choose, and you are its publisher. With ShelfPublisher, Orbita Media GmbH, an international publishing house with more than 1,000 titles, is the publisher of your paperback, gives it an ISBN from its own block and lists it in the wholesale catalogs that more than 50,000 bookstores in 18 countries order from, Amazon included.

Draft2Digital charges a one-time activation fee of 20 USD and 12 USD a year for accounts that earn less than 100 USD a year. ShelfPublisher costs €20 to €35 per book, once, with no yearly fee, and the price includes the publisher, the ISBN and the wholesale listing.

Yes. Your own KDP edition, in print and on Kindle, may stay; switch off KDP Expanded Distribution for the book. It keeps its own ISBN, the free one from KDP or one of yours: the ISBN we allocate belongs to our edition only and may not be used on KDP or anywhere else. Editions with other services, such as another platform, distributor or wholesaler, end within 3 months after you start with us; if a contract binds you for longer, tell us. Name every current edition in your access request. We check each book before we promise anything.

The ISBN comes from the block registered to Orbita Media as publisher, and it stays with Orbita Media. Under the ISBN standard an ISBN identifies the publisher of an edition, so it cannot move with the book.

It costs you nothing. If you publish the book elsewhere after the contract ends, the new edition needs a new ISBN. The article ISBN for self-published books explains why.