Draft2Digital Digital Narration

Publishing terms

Formats

Machine-narrated audio generated from an ebook already distributed by Draft2Digital

Distribution

Apple Books (exclusive), Library channels via Draft2Digital

Exclusivity

RequiredThe one place in this index where an audiobook programme requires exclusivity outright. Section 2(d) has the author agree that Apple Books “shall otherwise be the exclusive distributer of Audiobooks created hereunder”, with library channels through Draft2Digital as the only carve-out. The underlying book is unaffected — it stays non-exclusive under the main Draft2Digital agreement — and section 4 preserves your right to commission or record other audio versions yourself. What is exclusive is this particular machine-narrated recording.

Royalties

• Audiobook royaltyAudiobook royaltyNo rate is stated. Section 5 says Draft2Digital remits whatever royalties it receives from distribution, less its commission, in accordance with the main Draft2Digital terms — and states plainly that this is the author’s sole compensation for the rights granted. The agreement is explicit that the amount is outside Draft2Digital’s control, depending on the rates its licensees set, the list price the author sets, units sold, and taxes deducted from gross sales.

Fees

• Producing the audiobook — freeDraft2Digital states the service is currently free for its authors. “Currently” is the operative word: no fee is fixed by the agreement, and the main Draft2Digital account fees still apply separately.

Payment schedule

Not stated separately. Audiobook earnings follow the main Draft2Digital payment terms — monthly, around the 15th, subject to that agreement’s payout thresholds.

Rights & privacy

Manuscript upload

Required

Cloud storage

Yes

Account required

Yes

AI features

Built into the service

AI training on your work

The terms are unclearThe audiobook agreement says nothing about training, but it incorporates the main Draft2Digital Terms of Service, which carry the clause this index has already flagged: the additional right to use manuscript and Work files “for the purpose of improving and enhancing our systems for converting and distributing electronic and physical books”, scoped by purpose rather than technique. The audiobook agreement then adds its own derivative-works right over the Works and Related Materials, and does so “by all means now known or later developed”. Neither clause names model training and neither excludes it. One thing worth separating out: the narration itself is Apple Books text-to-speech, so the synthesis runs on Apple’s technology under Apple’s terms, which are not part of this agreement and were not reviewed here.

Content licence

Worldwide, non-exclusive and sublicensable, covering use, copying, modification, reproduction, distribution, translation, transmission, display and derivative works of the book and its related materials as audiobooks — plus the right to retain a copy of each audiobook and to sell it in whole or in part, in all languages and formats, “by all means now known or later developed”. Marketing rights extend to clips and to the author’s image, name and likeness in any medium worldwide. The ownership split is stated bluntly in section 4: you keep the underlying Work, but except for those rights you have “no right, title, or interest in the Audiobooks nor any of the technology” used to make them. Draft2Digital and Apple Books have complete control over the recording’s production, sale and distribution.

Deletion

Available, with a waiting period rather than a permanent bar — the important difference from Google’s auto-narration programme. A title cannot be withdrawn while it is already sold or agreed for distribution, or within six months of the audiobook’s first commercial release, unless you are terminating because Draft2Digital materially breached and did not cure within thirty days. After that the ordinary Draft2Digital termination route applies. Nothing addresses whether the retained copy of the audiobook is deleted.

Export

The recording is not portable by design. Apple Books is its exclusive shop, you hold no interest in the audio file, and no download of the finished audiobook is offered by this agreement. What is portable is everything underneath: the work remains yours, the ebook stays non-exclusive, and section 4 expressly preserves your right to have other audio versions made. If you want an audiobook you control, this is not the route to it.

Policy reviewed 4 September 2026