My Draft2Digital Maintenance Fee is Due

"Your annual $12.00 USD maintenance fee was deducted from your account resulting in a negative account balance. To avoid distribution disruption and to restore your account status to good standing, please visit your Account Status page by November 23, 2026 to pay your balance."

I'm torn.

"If you would like to change your account to a non-publishing account to avoid this maintenance fee, we offer a tool on the Account Status page that allows you to delist your books, change your account to a non-publishing account, and request a refund for your current maintenance fee." 

What in the world would I do with a non-publishing account? Just have one for kicks? 

I may be poor, but $12.00 won't exactly break me. And I did manage to sell one copy of my book via Barnes & Noble with D2D's retail distribution. I earned three dollars and eighty-eight cents, so really, I'd only be out $8.12.

"If you earn more than $100 dollars a year from book sales, meaning your net proceeds after D2D’s commission, your account fee will be waived automatically." 

While I understand and applaud D2D's efforts to curtail AI-written books from being uploaded to its site, a message like the one above is demoralizing. It's as if human authors are being penalized for D2D not investing in AI detection software, or at the very least being too lazy to use it. Sure, detection software isn't 100% foolproof, but it would still be superior to placing the onus on us.

All I've got going for me through D2D is library distribution for my ebooks and the ability to sell my one and only paperback at retail outlets (online only, obviously; not in stores). Library distribution I've somewhat been able to secure without D2D's help, at least here in my home state. Last I checked, no one's borrowed any of my books, and neither Hoopla nor any distributor other than OverDrive is carrying it. So, what exactly am I getting for my $12.00? I guess I get to help fight that mean old AI. Or something. AI books aren't the reason my work isn't selling.

I know this fee is a minor inconvenience, and I'm really not a miser. It's just that I've begun to question my expenditures versus their relative value. The computation is not working out in my favor. Hence, my decision to wind things down.

If I know me, I'll begrudgingly pay the fee. Because I'm a pushover.

I really need to stop being one.