From the press release: 260,000 Draft2Digital Authors and Publishers Gain Convenient Access to Thousands of Original and Affordable Premade Cover Designs
July 24, 2023—OKLAHOMA CITY, OKLA.—Draft2Digital (D2D), LLC, which powers the publishing businesses of 260,000 indie authors and small presses, today announced the acquisition of SelfPubBookCovers.com (SPBC). For the last decade, SPBC has operated a pioneering marketplace for premade book covers at selfpubbookcovers.com where indie authors have purchased thousands of original, one-of-a-kind cover designs from thousands of professional cover designers.
“Conventional cover design procurement is unnecessarily difficult and time-consuming for authors and artists alike,” said Kris Austin, co-founder and CEO of D2D. “With the acquisition of SPBC, we’re excited to introduce a better way for authors and artists to collaborate on the perfect cover design.”
SPBC will operate within a newly formed D2D division, Author Success, headed by Nick Thacker.
“Our mission at Author Success, as it is with SPBC, is to help authors efficiently procure the highest-quality essential publishing services for the least cost and effort,” said Nick Thacker, vice president of Author Success at D2D. “Just as authors have always been a key constituency of D2D, with the SPBC acquisition, cover artists are also now a key constituency we seek to serve at D2D. We want to help every professional cover designer in the world to participate in, and profit from, SPBC’s unique premade covers marketplace.”
The acquisition of SPBC follows D2D’s March 2022 acquisition of Smashwords. SPBC joins D2D’s growing suite of tools and services that help reduce the cost and complexity of essential publishing functions for book production, distribution, marketing, and business management.
How SPBC Works
For authors, SPBC makes it easy to find and purchase the perfect cover at a great price.
For artists, SPBC makes it possible to serve more authors with more cover designs in less time. SPBC virtually eliminates the time-consuming back-and-forth iterations necessary with conventional custom cover design. The artist’s customer is always thrilled because authors finish off their own cover and only purchase what they love.
Cover artists upload their original premade cover designs to SPBC along with recommended font treatments for the author’s pen name and title. For discoverability, artists tag each image with keywords to reflect the types of book categories, genres, and themes for which the image would be suitable.
Authors visit SPBC and can search thousands of artist portfolios at once using various keywords and categories to find the perfect one-of-a-kind cover image for their book.
The author applies their own pen name and title to the image using SPBC’s simple online tools. The author can either adopt the cover artist’s recommended font treatment and positioning, or the author can make adjustments. Authors only purchase once they’re 100% satisfied. The author retains future access to their one-of-a-kind book cover, should they ever wish to update their typography. Authors have unlimited typographic changes to their covers—at any time—at no additional cost.
What’s Coming Next
The acquisition has been completed. The services of SPBC are fully operational and available today to authors and cover artists at https://selfpubbookcovers.com. SPBC will operate as an independent marketplace outside of D2D, serving all authors, publishers, and cover artists.
SPBC co-founder Rob Sturtz will remain with the company during a transition period.
Over the next 12 months, D2D will operate the business as it is, introducing more D2D authors to its services while working closely with the artist community to help them develop their businesses on the platform.
D2D plans to introduce a major refresh to the marketplace in late 2024 or early 2025 that will enable improved cover image discoverability and workflows.
About SelfPubBookCovers.com
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in New York, SelfPubBookCovers.com (SPBC) operates a pioneering marketplace for premade book covers. The business was co-founded by The New York Times and USA Today bestselling hybrid author Shoshanna Evers (later known as Shoshanna Gabriel) and her graphic design artist father, Rob Sturtz. The company was an early pioneer in premade covers, and over the years developed a number of unique enhancements that remain industry-firsts to this day, such as the ability for authors to finish off their covers with self-serve tools that allow customized typesetting and placement of cover text. Sadly, Shoshanna, who was the inspiration behind the company, passed away unexpectedly in 2021.
About Draft2Digital
Founded in 2012 and headquartered in Oklahoma City, Draft2Digital is the world’s leading publishing platform for self-published authors and independent presses. The company offers a broad suite of tools and services that reduce the complexity of operating an indie publishing business. D2D’s tools and services streamline ebook and print publishing, distribution, metadata management, marketing, and publishing business operations. Following its acquisition of indie ebook pioneer Smashwords in 2022, Draft2Digital now serves more than 260,000 authors and publishers that collectively publish, distribute, and manage over 900,000 books worldwide with Draft2Digital. Visit Draft2Digital at https://draft2digital.com or follow on Twitter @Draft2Digital
