Key takeaway: Draft2Digital Account Termination after 13 years at SmashwordsA long-time independent author questions why a 13-year publishing relationship ended without warning, and asks whether loyalty, human creativity, and context still matter in modern digital publishing.
An Open Letter to Draft2Digital
From Shani Finn, Erotic Author
Why was a 13-year publishing relationship ended in a few months?
Dear Draft2Digital team,
My name is Shani Finn. I write erotic fiction. I have published on Smashwords for more than 13 years.
I never expected to write this letter.
For over a decade, Smashwords was my publishing home. It was where my stories lived. It was where readers found the messy, raw, human imagination that drove my writing. My work was not perfect literature. I never claimed that. But it was honest fiction created by a human being who loved storytelling.
Then the Smashwords migration to Draft2Digital happened.
For us, that transition only really took effect late in 2025. Within three or four months, my publishing account was terminated.
Just like that.
What actually happened?
The explanation I received was short.
A reader flagged one of my books for “extreme violence.”
That was the reason given.
After thirteen years of publishing.
After hundreds of interactions with readers.
After building a small but loyal audience.
I appealed the decision. The result stayed the same. The account remained terminated.
No deeper explanation followed. No discussion. No attempt to work through the issue.
The door simply closed.
Why not remove the book instead of the entire account?
Here is the question that keeps echoing in my mind.
If one book crosses a line under the new Terms of Service, why not remove the book?
Why remove the author?
Why erase a legacy account with more than a decade of history, especially when there had been no previous warnings or violations?
Policies change. Platforms evolve. I understand that.
But when policies become stricter, most platforms take a simple step. They remove the content that breaks the rule.
They do not delete the entire creator behind it.
At least not without a conversation.
Does loyalty still matter in digital publishing?
Thirteen years is not a small thing.
It means I believed in the platform.
It means I trusted the ecosystem.
It means I kept publishing there when many other options appeared.
Smashwords was built on the idea that independent writers deserved space. Space for niche genres. Space for strange ideas. Space for stories that traditional publishing would never touch.
Erotica lived there. Dark fiction lived there. Weird fiction lived there.
Now I wonder whether that space still exists.
Because from where I stand, loyalty seems to carry very little weight.
Fiction is fiction — even when it is uncomfortable
Let me be clear about something.
I have always been unapologetic about fiction.
Fiction explores dark places.
Fiction pushes limits.
Fiction allows readers to confront ideas safely.
Erotic fiction especially plays with boundaries. It always has.
Readers know the difference between a story and reality. That is the entire point of storytelling.
My books were never meant to be moral instruction. They were meant to be stories.
Raw stories.
Messy stories.
Human stories.
The strange irony of today’s publishing world
Here is the part that feels almost surreal.
We now live in an era where thousands of AI-generated books appear on publishing platforms every month.
Many of those so-called authors upload content that machines generate in minutes.
Yet a human writer with 13 years of history can lose an account overnight.
The irony is hard to ignore.
I did not use automation.
I did not mass produce titles.
I wrote my stories the old way.
Word by word.
Late at night.
With coffee, frustration, and imagination.
Were the stories perfect?
No.
Were they literary masterpieces?
Also no.
But they were human creativity.
And that used to mean something.
What message does this send to independent authors?
Platforms shape the culture of independent publishing.
When a long-standing account disappears without real dialogue, authors notice.
It sends a quiet message:
Longevity does not protect you.
History does not matter.
And creative context may not matter either.
That message makes many writers uneasy.
Independent authors build their careers on platforms like yours. Many of us have no agents, no corporate backing, and no legal teams.
We only have our stories and the platforms that host them.
When those platforms act without transparency, trust becomes fragile.
What I wish had happened instead
This situation could have unfolded differently.
A message could have said:
“This book violates the updated policy. Please remove it.”
Or:
“This content must change before we can continue distributing it.”
That would have been fair. That would have respected both the platform and the creator.
Instead, thirteen years of work vanished in one administrative action.
That feels less like policy enforcement and more like erasure.
A final thought
Draft2Digital, I am not asking you to change your policies.
Platforms must set boundaries. That is understandable.
But I am asking a simple question.
Where is the space for context?
Where is the recognition that long-time authors helped build the ecosystems that now exist?
Because independent publishing was never supposed to feel disposable.
And right now, it does.
—
Shani Finn
Erotic Fiction Author
PS: Stories are messy things. They come from flawed humans, not clean algorithms. If independent publishing forgets that, it risks losing the very voices that made it vibrant in the first place.
PSS: You can read some of our Free Flash Fictions here
