Draft2Digital vs. BooksOasis: Wide Distribution or a Store That Pays in Full?

Draft2Digital and BooksOasis often come up in the same conversation, because both appeal to authors who want to be less dependent on Amazon. They do very different jobs, though. Draft2Digital is an aggregator: you upload once, and it delivers your book to many retailers and library services, taking a share of each sale. BooksOasis is a store: readers buy directly from it, and you keep the whole price of every ebook sale for a flat yearly plan.

So the choice is rarely one or the other. It's about what each does best and where each fits in a wide publishing plan. This guide compares how they pay, what they cost, how far they reach and how they handle print, with Draft2Digital's terms checked at its own pages.

Both need a clean manuscript. LiberScript exports an EPUB and a print-ready PDF you can upload to Draft2Digital, to BooksOasis and to any store you go direct with, so your book looks the same everywhere.

At a glance: Draft2Digital vs. BooksOasis

What Draft2Digital does

Draft2Digital takes one upload and sends your book to a list of retailers and library services, handling formatting, metadata, reporting and payments. Its FAQ lists partners such as Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo and library platforms like OverDrive and cloudLibrary, with Amazon described as invite-only. Since 2022 it also owns Smashwords, which became a dedicated ebook store supplied only by Draft2Digital in January 2026.

It charges no upfront fee per book. Instead, it keeps roughly 10% of the retail price of each sale, so a store that pays 70% becomes about 60% for you. From 2026, new accounts pay a one-time $20 activation fee when distribution is enabled, and accounts that earned less than $100 in net royalties over the previous twelve months pay $12 a year. Draft2Digital's FAQ says print books are distributed through Amazon and Ingram channels, with authors earning about 45% of the list price minus printing.

Its formatting tools are one of its best-loved features, and its dashboard makes managing many stores far simpler than running an account with each.

What BooksOasis does

BooksOasis is a store, not a distributor. You list a book once, with ebook, paperback and hardcover editions on the same listing, and readers buy directly from BooksOasis. Ebooks are read in the Oasis Reader app on phones, tablets and computers; print copies are printed on demand when a reader orders.

You pay a flat yearly plan, and BooksOasis takes no percentage of your price. Every ebook sale pays you 100% of the price, and print pays the price minus the printing cost and a handling fee of 30% of that printing cost, with shipping paid by the reader. It doesn't send your book anywhere else, which is exactly why it works alongside an aggregator: it isn't one of Draft2Digital's channels, so you list on it directly.

What a $4.99 ebook earns

Illustrative. Each store's own terms and taxes apply. Draft2Digital's share is roughly 10% of the retail price.

Reach: many doors vs. one storefront

Draft2Digital's great strength is reach. One upload can place your ebook in major retailers around the world and in library catalogues, which would take many separate accounts to manage yourself. Libraries in particular are hard to reach alone, and a borrowed first book can lead readers to buy the rest of a series.

BooksOasis offers a single storefront with its own readers, who browse genre shelves, series pages, new releases, a Coming Soon shelf and books on sale. It won't place your book in other stores or libraries. What it adds is a place where the whole price of an ebook reaches you, and features built for independent authors, like series pages with reading order, pre-orders and promotional prices with start and end dates.

Print: distribution or a store sale

Draft2Digital's print program distributes paperbacks into retail channels. You earn a share of the list price after printing, and retailers decide how to display and discount your book. That's useful if you want your paperback available through the usual retail catalogues.

BooksOasis sells your paperback and hardcover in its own store at the price you set. The handling fee is tied to the printing cost, not the price, so every dollar above the minimum price is yours. It checks your interior and cover automatically before submission and gives you a cover template marked with the spine, safe area and barcode area.

Payments

Draft2Digital pays once a month, around the 15th, after the stores have paid it; most stores pay 30 to 60 days after the month of the sale for ebooks, and up to 90 days for print. Its minimums are $10 for PayPal or US direct deposit, $20 for international direct deposit and $100 for check, and PayPal payments carry a 2.5% fee capped at $1.50 for US authors and $25 outside the US.

BooksOasis records every sale in an earnings ledger and pays by bank transfer or PayPal. Domestic US bank transfers typically carry no fee; international payouts go by wire once your balance passes a minimum, so the wire's fixed fee doesn't swallow a small payment.

Control and convenience

With an aggregator, you trade a share of each sale for convenience: one dashboard, one set of reports, one payment. Changing a price or a file once updates every store in the channel. The cost is that the aggregator's share applies to every sale it handles, and some stores pay more if you go direct.

There's also the question of who you depend on. An aggregator sits between you and many stores, so its terms apply to a large share of your income; spreading sales across a direct store or two, an aggregator and a store you list on yourself means no single change in terms can hit everything at once.

With a store like BooksOasis, you manage one more listing,but the listing is fully yours to price and promote, and there's no share taken from your price. For many authors, the extra listing takes an evening to set up and pays for itself with a handful of ebook sales.

Using both: a wide setup that pays

1. Format once in LiberScript, exporting an EPUB and a print PDF.
2. Go direct with the one or two stores that sell most for you.
3. Use Draft2Digital for the rest: smaller stores, the Smashwords Store and libraries.
4. List on BooksOasis directly, and send your own readers there when you want the full price of a sale.

Never send the same book to the same store twice through two routes; keep a simple table of which route delivers which book to which store. BooksOasis won't appear in that table as a Draft2Digital channel, because you list there yourself.

Pricing when you're wide

Being wide means the same book is on sale in many places, and readers notice when prices differ. Keep one list price for each format across every store, and run promotions for set dates rather than leaving a lower price in one place. Some stores watch competitors' prices and may match a lower one, which can quietly reduce what you earn elsewhere.

Draft2Digital makes this easier for the stores it handles: change a price once and it flows out to each channel. On BooksOasis, you set the price on the listing, and any promotional price carries a start and an end date, so a weekend sale ends on its own. Because a BooksOasis ebook sale pays the full price, you don't need a lower price there to earn more; the same price simply pays you more.

Keeping book details in step

Every store needs the same core details: title, subtitle, description, categories, keywords, series name and number, and cover. When they drift apart, readers get confused and series readers struggle to find the next book. Keep one master document per book with the final description, keywords and series details, and paste from it whenever you set up or update a listing. On BooksOasis, each book needs three to five genres and at least three search keywords before it can go to review, which is a good discipline for every store.

A checklist for getting set up

1. Finish and proofread the manuscript, then format it in LiberScript.
2. Export an EPUB and a print PDF at your chosen trim size.
3. Create a Draft2Digital account and choose your channels, leaving out any store you go direct with.
4. Create a BooksOasis account, pick a plan, and add the ebook, paperback and hardcover editions.
5. Upload each platform's cover, built from its own template, and check the print previews.
6. Record where every edition is listed and at what price.
7. Add links to all your stores in your newsletter, website and back matter.

Common questions authors ask

Can I use Draft2Digital and BooksOasis for the same book? Yes. BooksOasis isn't a Draft2Digital channel, so there's no conflict. You list on BooksOasis directly.

How much does Draft2Digital take? Roughly 10% of the retail price of each sale. New accounts pay a one-time $20 activation fee, and accounts earning under $100 a year in net royalties pay $12 a year.

Does BooksOasis reach libraries? No. For libraries, Draft2Digital's library partners are a good route.

What does BooksOasis cost? $29.99 a year for 10 books, $179 for 100 and $599 for 500. Every ebook sale pays 100% of the price.

Should I use Draft2Digital's formatting or LiberScript? Draft2Digital's automatic formatting is quick and good for many books. LiberScript gives you more design control and produces files you can use on any platform, including stores you go direct with.

Is Smashwords still separate? No. Smashwords is now an ebook store supplied only by Draft2Digital, paying 75% of list price for ebooks from $2.99 and 40% below.

Three authors, three mixes

A debut author with one book uses Draft2Digital for everything except Amazon, to keep things simple, and lists the book on BooksOasis for readers who come through the newsletter.

A series author sells strongly on two stores, goes direct there, uses Draft2Digital for libraries and smaller stores, and puts every book in the series on BooksOasis with a series page and pre-orders for the next release.

A non-fiction author with a speaking audience sends event attendees to BooksOasis for the ebook, where each sale pays in full, and relies on Draft2Digital for retail reach.

More reading: Draft2Digital alternatives and Draft2Digital vs. Smashwords on the BooksOasis publisher site, and our LiberScript vs. Draft2Digital formatting guide.

The bottom line

Draft2Digital is the easiest way to reach many stores and libraries, in exchange for a share of each sale and small account fees. BooksOasis is a single store where you pay one flat plan and keep every ebook sale in full. They answer different questions, so the strongest plan uses both: the aggregator for reach, the store for the sales you steer yourself, and LiberScript for files that look right in every one of them.