Draft2Digital adds ebook subscription service Scribd to sales channels

Distributor Draft2Digital has added ebook subscription service Scribd to its range of sales channels and authors will get royalties of 60% for sales through Scribd, plus a partial-read deal.

D2D says normal royalties of 60% of retail list price will be paid for any book read past the 30% mark by Scribd subscribers, and 10 partial reads of between 10%-30% will count as a single sale.

Rival distributor Smashwords signed a deal with Scribd last December, with authors also earning 60% of the list price, up to a maximum of $12.50 per read, for a read of at least 30%, with 10 partial reads of over 15% but under 30% getting one full payment.

Smashwords also has a link-up with ebook subscription service Oyster Books offering 60% of the book’s price for a read of over 10%.

D2D says some authors have had concerns previously about alleged copyright infringement on the Scribd site, but says it is “entirely satisfied” that the firm is committed to combating piracy and providing a robust, legitimate reading platform.

All D2D books submitted to Scribd will be added to the site’s content fingerprinting system, removing any unauthorized copies from the site and preventing new ones in the future.

Scribd recently released a major update to their Book ID copyright protection system which scans books to analyze the text for word count, letter frequency, phrases and other elements.

It creates a digital fingerprint and detects and removes unauthorized versions. It removes all files at Scribd that match the same fingerprint and blocks the upload of future unauthorized versions. Scribd says no copyrighted content is stored or made available to the public by BookID.

Draft2Digital isn’t adding books automatically to the Scribd channel, so authors and publishers will need to visit the site to opt in.

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