What I really want is for this post to act as a sort of resource for other new writers who are thinking about self-publishing, particularly when it comes to IngramSpark and Amazon KDP. There’s a lot of stuff on the internet to help with self-publishing, and I’ve read a lot of it over the last two years as I’ve gradually brought my books to release, but there were still a few things that didn’t become clear to me until From the Grave of the Gods went live. So if this helps shed some light for new writers, that would be amazing. So, strap in because this will be a long one.

What is IngramSpark?

IngramSpark is a print-on-demand publishing service for indie authors with a wide distribution network, allowing access to loads of brick and mortar and online bookshops around the world. It works in a very similar way to Amazon’s KDP, with options for paperback, ebook and hardcover.

What’s the difference between IngramSpark and Amazon KDP?

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) is a service for publishing your books through Amazon. They have options for paperback, ebook and hardcover, as well as pretty useful sales tracking and marketing options. They have an expanded distribution option in exchange for a lower royalty rate, but you are essentially using KDP to have your book sold on Amazon. It’s really the best method if you want to be on that platform.

IngramSpark on the other hand, has a wider network for distribution at the same royalty rate as you’d get by exclusively publishing on Amazon. Unlike Amazon, Ingram will allow you to have your book listed on websites such as Barnes & Noble, Waterstones, IndieBound, Book Depository, and many, many more. Their distribution network also includes Amazon, so you’ll still be listed there too. Crucially, however, IngramSpark charges for publishing using their platform, and they charge for revisions to your book’s internal files. Amazon KDP is free.

Another very important difference is that KDP allows you to publish a paperback using a free ISBN number provided by Amazon, whereas IngramSpark requires you to have bought your own. The downside to Amazon’s free ISBN is that by using it, you can only sell that edition through Amazon – sneaky! So it’s still in your best interests to get your own ISBNs if you can, even if you’re only going to use Amazon – you never know where else you’ll want to sell your book in the future.

Which should you use?

My answer? Both.

Both platforms have their advantages and disadvantages. KDP is free, easy to use (Ingram is not user friendly at all), gives you access to the biggest book marketplace in the world, allows you to track all sorts of sales figures, has other services you can make use of like KDP Select (which places your book on the KindleUnlimited subscription service), marketing services for ads, has ways to pretty-up your Amazon listing with KDP A+ Content etc… Amazon also has related services like Amazon Author Central which allows you to edit your author profile, track reader reviews and other things. That’s all amazing.

Meanwhile, IngramSpark’s big wins are its distribution network, and its ability to set up print book pre-orders (which even show up on Amazon), which KDP doesn’t allow.

Additionally, regarding proof copies: KDP’s proofs are cheaper than Ingram, but they have an ugly “NOT FOR RESALE” banner printed across the logo. IngramSpark doesn’t technically have proof copies, just author copies which you can order, which in turn means that you’re getting to look at the finalised print version of your book. Therefore, IngramSpark’s copies are more desirable for sending out as ARCs (Advance Reader/Review Copies) to reviewers or for using in giveaways etc...

Plus, for a small extra fee (like, one dollar), you can add a special one-off page to the front of your book, which is a good way to put in a personalised message for your ARC readers (and to specify the ARC isn’t for resale).

There’s so many blog posts out there about which service you should use, pitting them against one another, but in my opinion, using them both to leverage each one’s advantages and cover the disadvantages is really the best way forward.

In my experience so far, print quality between KDP and Ingram is comparable – they both use the same printers after all – so that’s not really a consideration. That being said, Ingram do have an extra option for paper over KDP – using mass market groundwood paper for pages rather than the bright white or cream cartridge paper. It makes your book look a little more like a traditionally published one you’d find in a bookshop. Some people like it, some people hate it, but it’s just an extra option to choose from, so YMMV.

Ways to mitigate the cost of IngramSpark

I said above that IngramSpark charges money for publishing through them, and that KDP is free. However, Ingram has regular voucher/coupon codes on the internet that allow for free listing. It’s as simple as finding one that’s valid – which is quite easy. Chances are there’s a coupon code available right now, and if not, there definitely will be soon.

Revisions are the kicker (there still may be coupons but they’re less regular). They charge money for you to change your book’s files after you’ve uploaded them. The problem comes about because after you’ve uploaded your book to Ingram, they start listing it in their catalogue. So over the next 30 days, no matter what date you’ve set for publication, your book will start appearing in online stores for pre-order.

However, you can mitigate this somewhat if you’re using KDP in tandem, because revisions there are free. With KDP, you have the ability to upload your book and just… not publish it yet. It can stay private to you until such time as you decide you want it published. This makes revisions easier. So, simply upload your files to KDP, get your proofs from them (yes, you have to pay for the printing), check them over, make any necessary adjustments, and then when you are happy that your internals are absolutely ready… go ahead and upload to IngramSpark. 

Because IngramSpark has its printers in lots of different countries (Amazon uses them, too. They’re called LightningSource), it makes for a pretty easy way to send out copies of your book to people in different countries. All you have to do when you place an order for author copies through Ingram is to pick which territory you want them to come from.

For example: I’m in the UK. If I wanted to send my book to someone in the US, it would be very expensive for me to order a copy of my book to come to my house, and then ship it internationally to the US. What I can do instead is put the US recipient’s address on IngramSpark and change the option to use the US printers, rather than the UK. That way, you’re only paying local shipping costs (and a couple of pennies for a currency conversion by your bank), not international shipping.

Setting up print pre-orders

As noted above, when you complete listing your book on IngramSpark, it automatically adds the book to its distribution list which then starts to populate across the internet, ending up on bookstore websites over the course of about 30 days.

You have two options when you’re setting up your book: you can set an “On Sale Date” and a “Publication Date”. Do not be fooled. This does not control setting up a pre-order. Your Publication Date is the date on which your book will be made available for readers to buy. Your “On Sale Date” is the date on which retailers can start ordering copies of the book from Ingram to fulfil any pre-orders.

Some places, as I have discovered, like Amazon will buy a stockpile of your books (30 or so) for launch day so they have them to send out to customers who buy through their store. This is what your “On Sale Date” controls. So, you definitely want to set the “On Sale Date” a little bit before your publication date, but it doesn’t have to be long.

This came as a surprise to me personally, because when I listed From the Grave of the Gods, I thought that setting different dates is what would allow me to control pre-orders. As a result of this mistake, my novel went up for pre-order everywhere MONTHS before I actually wanted it to. I rolled with it in the end, and it turned out fine, but it’s not particularly clear for a first time user.

So there’s another tip: only list on IngramSpark when you want your book to go live for pre-order. Some people suggest a month before publication, some people suggest more. It’s up to you, and when you’re prepared to start advertising those pre-orders.

Setting a Price on IngramSpark

I’m not going to lie, this one is a pain in the arse with Ingram. At least on KDP when you set a price, that’s it. With Ingram, because you’ll be possibly distributing to retailers, they want a cut as well so you’ll have to specify a wholesale discount for them, and you’ll also have to specify whether you want to allow returns for unsold books.

So initially you want your paperback on KDP and Ingram to cost the same. That’s easy. I set From the Grave of the Gods as £9.99 on both. But you have to make sure that your sale price on Ingram allows for the wholesale discount for retailers and still gives you a decent royalty (publisher compensation). To be honest, I still don’t really understand that stuff – I’m no good with maths – so I set it as low as I could, and because I didn’t want to be inundated with returns of unsold books, I didn’t allow returns.

All of this means that my books are not being physically stocked in stores, only online for print-on-demand (except Amazon who seem to have bought 30 of mine to stockpile regardless).

I have seen the horror story of one author who had a bunch of her books returned, and she had to pay the cost, wiping out an entire month’s worth of sales revenue just because of maybe five to ten returns. Imagine that! A retailer buys your books at their wholesale discount, and you get maybe a dollar or a quid in royalties per book. Then they fail to sell them, so send them back, and you don’t just pay the royalties back, you have to pay back the price the retailer paid for them. I said no thanks.

But if you do want your book stocked physically, you will need to set an attractive wholesale discount and pick one of the returns options. Then maybe the stores will stock your book on their shelves. I guess it’s a high-risk/high-reward strategy because having your book right there on the shelf in front of customers is more likely to help it sell than just being tucked away on a website.

Post-Publishing – What Happens?

Your book’s come out, yay! You’ve used both KDP and IngramSpark for your paperbacks, and possibly just KDP for your ebook (because KDP is reigning king there, hands down). What now?

Well, here’s where it gets complicated, and where I don’t have all the information yet. I know for a fact (read: pretty sure) that Amazon are the ones who bought 30 copies of my paperback from Ingram to stockpile for orders through their platform. How did I know this?

IngramSpark showed me 31 print sales on launch day, but that’s all I could see. No idea where they came from or anything. I thought that if I set my paperback on Ingram and KDP, that any pre-orders through Amazon would come from Ingram, but when launch day came, any subsequent Amazon orders would go through KDP. I was wrong. My KDP graph has not shown me a single paperback sale for From the Grave of the Gods. This tells me that paperback orders are still coming from Ingram.

On the Amazon Author Central website, there is a section called BookScan Weekly Reports, which only deals with print sales. This shows me the sales of my paperbacks through Amazon, regardless of if they’re using the KDP version or Ingram. Since I know they’re not using the KDP version, the book sales on that graph must be showing me sales of the Ingram version that have come through Amazon. And, since Ingram isn’t showing me any more sales other than that initial launch day 31 – the subsequent sales on the BookScan Weekly graph, must mean that Amazon have stockpiled copies of my book to send out.

Here’s where it gets extra muddy. I suspect that once the Ingram stockpile runs out, Amazon will switch over to using the KDP version of the book to sell, rather than ordering more from Ingram. This is what I hope will happen, because honestly, KDP’s sales trackers are MUCH better and more straightforward than IngramSpark’s. I mean Ingram’s are utterly atrocious. They seem stuck in the past and deliberately obtuse.

Unfortunately, time will tell on that one.

The other thing to note about post-publishing with IngramSpark vs KDP is that KDP pays its royalties on the 29th day of the month, two months after your sales happened. IngramSpark pays you three months after the sales happened.

So, for the sales period of 1st - 31st December, you’ll get paid at the end of February (28th or 29th if it’s there) from KDP, but March from IngramSpark. That’s a pretty useful thing to know, especially as you’re sitting there twiddling your thumbs waiting for the royalties to come in.

I hope that was helpful to you, it’s all a pretty long-term learning process and I’m sure there’s more observations to make. As time goes on and things become clearer, I will probably revisit this topic with another post further down the line.