26.03.2014 10:36

IngramSpark - Thoughts So Far

I've been very impressed with IngramSpark. It's Lightning Source's self-publishing platform and includes tools for publishing print-on-demand (POD) paperbacks and eBooks. I used the paperback facility only.

So how does it compare to other POD services?

In the past, I have used FeedARead and CreateSpace. The former is an arts council funded POD service that produces high quality books, but isn't entirely free to use beyond its basic service. The latter is owned by Amazon; there are very few charges and books are cheap to print, but the products are services are noticeably poorer. You can read my detailed thoughts on FeedARead here and CreateSpace here.

Bookshop Margins

The reason I chose to try IngramSpark was that they allow you to offer bookshops a 55% margin. This is important because many bookshops won't even consider stocking a book unless they get a huge discount. Indeed, my first Seesaw - Volume I collection was dropped from Waterstones because of their low profit margin. A store in Exeter was interested in The Troll Trap until they found out that I could only get them a 40% margin.

Allowing book store their 55% means lower royalties for the author. For example, I will get about 50p per copy of My Granny Writes Erotica - Threesome sold through IngramSpark, whereas I'd get almost £2 selling the book with the usual POD 40% margin. However, if it's the difference between having a book store presence and not having one, then it's worth the lower royalty. 50p is still greater than the royalty you'd be likely to get from a traditional publisher and many authors wouldn't think twice about snapping up a book deal. Besides, having an IngramSpark edition doesn't prevent you from having a CreateSpace version, so you can still preserve your higher royalty for Amazon sales.

Timeframe

At first, I thought IngramSpark were going to be really slow. Their website promised a 48 hour response to support inquiries and this doesn't seem to be a target that's consistently met. However, they do have a phone line that's manned by very helpful people. Unfortunately, it's in America, but I made three support calls and they cost me less than £7 from an ordinary land line, which was worth it to get the ball rolling.

It usually takes five days for the IngramSpark team to approve files. I was keen to get books printed by the end of the month so that I can get them to magazines well in advance of the launch. When I explained that I had a deadline to IngramSpark, they were very helpful and agreed a pre-media rush. This meant that the files were approved in two to three days.

I paid £25 for the extra fast delivery on my proof, but was disappointed to find that they didn't deliver on a Saturday. Having said that, there were only six says between ordering my proof and its arrival.

The most impressive part of the service, in terms of time, is that I places a bulk order of press copies two days ago, and they're due to arrive today! I did not pay extra for fast delivery on this occasion. This is an incredibly quick turn around.

One thing to bear in mind is that IngramSpark require you to have your own ISBN to publish. ISBNs can be expensive because you have to buy them in blocks of ten. The cheapest way to buy ISBNs is with a 10 working days turn around. This could potentially slow down the book creation process by two weeks. However, in practice, my ISBNs only took six working days to arrive. I now have nine spare for the next books.

I began creating my IngramSpark title (by applying for an ISBN) on 6th March. So that's 20 days from start to delivery - not bad.

I can't yet tell you how long it takes for book stores to list an IngramSpark book. My book isn't scheduled to be on sale until July. A google search for the ISBN certainly doesn't show any results yet.

Costs

IngramSpark charges $49.00 (£29.62) to set up a title. This is refunded if you order at least 50 copies within 60 days. You also have to pay $12.00 (£7.26) per year for extended distribution.

It's free to setup a title with CreateSpace and FeedARead, so if you don't want to order 50 copies, you could see IngramSpark's setup fee as an extra cost.

FeedARead charge an initial £88 for distribution (which, as far as I can tell, gets access to exactly the same options) and a £17.99 distribution renewal.

In theory, CreateSpace offer free extended distribution. However, when I looked into it, it doesn't appear that they use Gardners and Bertrams - the two major distributors recognised in the UK. Also, book shops are reluctant to deal with a POD service owned by Amazon.

In terms of buying copies of your book, IngramSpark customers benefit from a bulk discount. This is kind of the case with all POD services, as the more you buy, the cheaper the postage. However, IngramSpark give you a bulk discount on the print costs too.

IngramSpark's printing costs are higher than CreateSpace's printing costs, but because IngramSpark books are printed and posted from the UK, you save on postage what you'd lose in printing.

Here's an example calculation using My Granny Writes Erotica - Threesome and the cheapest delivery options:

Cost of 100 copies from IngramSpark: £343.00 + £26.68 p&p = £369.68.

Cost of 100 copies from CreateSpace: £293.18 + £68.35 p&p = £361.53

However, consider that with IngramSpark's cheapest delivery, my books are due to arrive the day after they were printed. With CreateSpace's cheapest delivery, the estimate is 31 business days.

You can opt for fast delivery with CreateSpace, but it inflates the cost:

Cost of 100 copies from CreateSpace (fast): £293.18 + £88.30 = £381.41.

Useful links: IngramSpark's print and shipping calculator, CreateSpace's print and shipping calculator.

You have to pay about £15 to update a file, which can be annoying if there's a problem you couldn't foresee like a cover printing a few shades darker than you expected (not that I'm bitter!).

Royalties

I mentioned that my royalty on my £9.99 334 page book is about 50p with IngramSpark. However, that is because I've selected the 55% discount option. You also have the choice to leave suppliers with a 40% margin, in which case my royalty on the same book would be £1.95 - very respectable (and exactly the same as CreateSpace offer).

Quality

I'm very happy with the quality of my proof from IngramSpark. As I understand it, LightningSource print books for FeedARead as well as IngramSpark, so you'd expect the same quality from both.

Interestingly my IngramSpark proof is 2mm thinner and over 50g lighter than my CreateSpace version of the same book. This is great news for postage. Most authors will be familiar with the agony of trying to fit a book into the large letter postage format, to save money. Using IngramSpark certainly helped there.

The cover printed much darker than expected (and much darker than the same cover printed with CreateSpace). I will have to tweak that. This is annoying but unexpected printing results are common across all of the POD platforms that I've used.

The proof was neatly trimmed. This is a vast improvement on CreateSpace, whose attitude towards trimming seems somewhat haphazard. However, it's hard to draw too many conclusions from a sample size of one.

Ease of Use

I didn't find IngramSpark as easy to use as CreateSpace and FeedARead. They don't spoon feed you. However, because I already have experience in setting up POD books, I knew what sort of process to expect.

The own ISBN requirement can slow things down.

Catches

IngramSpark give you the option to allow returns - something bookshops prefer. However, return options are not very favourable. Authors have to pay stores the current wholesale price (£4.50 in my case) of any books they return, and unless you pay an additional £12, the book gets destroyed.

Authors have no control over what stores do to books once they buy them. So if a bookshop were to buy ten copies and keep nine locked away in a store cupboard unseen by customers, you could find yourself earning 50p and owing £40.50.

Another point is that being able to offer bookshops 55% increases your chance of getting stocked, but it by no means guarantees you a bookshop presence, especially if you can't afford to enable returns.

In Summary

IngramSpark are a good choice for the mid-high selling indie author, due to enhanced options for getting into bookshops and buying in bulk.

If you're focussed on online (especially Amazon) sales and have no money to invest, the best choice is CreateSpace.

If you want a professional service, top quality books, decent royalties and the option for customers to go into book shops and order your books in, then choose either FeedARead or IngramSpark's 40% discount option.

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