# Self Publishing Insiders

> Draft2Digital's weekly show featuring insider interviews on wide distribution, writing craft, and author business strategy — with quarterly community Q&A panels.

Source: https://selfpublishingdirectory.com/podcasts/self-publishing-insiders
Website: https://www.draft2digital.com/blog/category/self-publishing-insiders-podcast/
Category: Podcasts (https://selfpublishingdirectory.com/podcasts)
Pricing: free — $0
AI-powered: no
Tags: distribution, strategy, interviews, business, wide-publishing, draft2digital, d2d
Last verified: 2026-05-14
Best For: Authors publishing wide who want direct D2D platform access — quarterly community Q&A with D2D staff plus weekly author interviews
Episode Count: 274
Frequency: weekly
Host: Mark Leslie Lefebvre, Jim Azevedo, Lexi Greene
Topic: publishing-industry

Self Publishing Insiders is Draft2Digital's official weekly podcast, active since 2020 and now at 274+ episodes (latest EP265 "Building Your Author Brand: Share Your Books with the World" published March 5, 2026; Apple feed total 274 as of May 2026). Hosted by D2D veterans Mark Leslie Lefebvre and Jim Azevedo with Lexi Greene now appearing as a regular host on recent episodes, the show features weekly interviews with authors and publishing professionals on topics including wide distribution, writing craft, marketing, and building a sustainable author business.

The show's format is distinctive among platform-backed podcasts: episodes are sourced from live D2D Spotlight events broadcast on YouTube and Facebook, then published as audio. This means guests are often speaking to a live community audience, not just a recording setup — which produces more interactive conversations than typical studio interviews.

## What You Get

- **Weekly author interviews:** 45–60 minute conversations with indie authors and publishing professionals. Guests are drawn from across genres and career stages, with a consistent emphasis on wide publishing across multiple platforms.
- **Ask D2D Anything (AUA) episodes:** Quarterly Q&A panels where D2D team members — including operations and technology staff — take live questions from the author community on platform features, distribution strategy, and best practices.
- **Wide-distribution perspective:** Unlike Amazon-centric podcasts, Self Publishing Insiders consistently features authors who publish across platforms. Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble Press, Google Play, and library channels appear regularly as topics.
- **D2D platform updates:** Because the hosts are D2D staff, episodes often include early or first-person information about platform changes, new distribution partnerships, and feature developments.

## Who It's For

- **Authors publishing wide or considering it:** The show is the most direct audio resource for understanding how Draft2Digital's platform works, what wide publishing looks like in practice, and how working authors navigate publishing across multiple storefronts.
- **Authors new to non-Amazon distribution:** The AUA episodes are particularly useful for authors with platform-specific questions about D2D's systems that they can't easily find answered elsewhere.
- **Authors interested in international and library distribution:** D2D's focus on OverDrive, library channels, and international platforms comes up more frequently here than in most indie author podcasts.

**Pricing:** Free. Available on Apple Podcasts (4.6/5, 28 ratings — count dropped from 33 in the prior cycle, likely Apple recalculation), Spotify, YouTube, and via the Draft2Digital blog.

## Strengths

- **Insider access:** Mark Lefebvre (former Kobo Director of Self-Publishing) and Jim Azevedo bring decades of combined publishing platform experience — context that pure author-hosted shows can't replicate.
- **AUA format is genuinely useful:** The quarterly community Q&A episodes produce direct answers to operational questions that generic publishing advice misses.
- **Active and consistent:** Weekly output since 2020 with no hiatuses; 274+ episodes with a searchable back catalog on the D2D blog.

## Limitations

- **Platform-backed perspective:** Produced by Draft2Digital, the show won't critically evaluate D2D's weaknesses versus competitors like Smashwords (now D2D-owned), IngramSpark, or PublishDrive. Distribution decisions are framed from a D2D standpoint.
- **Smaller audience than independent shows:** With 28 Apple ratings, this show's listener community is much smaller than established independent podcasts — fewer places to discuss episodes or find community around the content.
- **Limited episode discovery:** The D2D blog archive is the main search tool; the show lacks a dedicated standalone website with full search capability.

## Alternatives

The Kobo Writing Life Podcast covers similar wide-publishing territory with a longer-running archive (425+ episodes) and bi-weekly long-form interviews. For a podcast that addresses both KDP-exclusive and wide-publishing strategies, the 6 Figure Authors podcast covers both approaches.