Julie Broad (Book Broad), an Amazon overall #1 best-selling author and founder of Book Launchers, answers Joanne’s questions about using KDP and IngramSpark together. Key points: you can’t restrict IngramSpark sales to libraries only; IngramSpark no longer charges an upload fee; KDP often gives better Amazon royalty rates so authors commonly use both; IngramSpark requires a wholesale discount for bookstore distribution (typically large, e.g., ~55%), and returns can be enabled or disabled (disabling limits bookstore stocking); authors can’t control who gets discounts or prevent undercutting; Julie recommends wide distribution to avoid sole dependence on Amazon but notes authors may choose differently based on goals.
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Did you happen to see my video on publishing your book with both IngramSpark and KDP? If you did, or even if you didn't, but you have questions about working with KDP and IngramSpark for your book. Well, so did Joanne, and this video is for her and for you. Hey there. I'm Julie the Book Broad. Amazon Overall Number 1 Best Selling Author and founder of this fabulous book publishing services company, Book Launchers. I'm also the author of two really helpful books for nonfiction authors. Self Publish and Succeed and Self Promote and Succeed. All right, so Joanne wrote with a lot of questions. And if you have questions, I do recommend you join us for our bi weekly livestreams here at booklaunchers tv because then you can get your questions answered live. But emailing them in, we will get to them. It's just not always that rapid. All right, so Joanne's first question. Hi, I saw your video on KDP and IngramSpark and and I'm hoping you can answer a few questions I have about the process. Number one, is it possible to publish your paperback book on KDP only and a library edition hardback on IngramSpark only? This way they would each have their own ISBN that you would, I assume, purchase and there would be no confusion. Sales for each platform would be separate. All right, I understand the logic. However, you can't specify to IngramSpark that they're only to sell your book to libraries. KDP does publish hardbacks now, so you may just want to use them. A library will order your book from Amazon now. If you're wondering what this is all about in the video which I'll link to at the end, I was comparing the two and also explaining the two being KDP and IngramSpark. And I was explaining why we use both IngramSpark and KDP print for our authors. In that video I mentioned IngramSpark has an upload fee, but that's no longer true. They rudely didn't tell me in advance that they were dropping that and I released the video the same week. They announced there's no upload fee, but other than that, the rest of the video was solid and we use IngramSpark for print pre sales and widespread distribution beyond Amazon for print books. We still use KDP print because it gets authors a better rate for books sold on Amazon, which for many is the majority of retail sales. I do say retail because many of our authors do a decent volume of books in bulk, so they are buying their books from Ingram or KDP or even offset print runs from printers to then sell in large quantities to corporations as part of speaking engagements or to give away to their clients. All right, back to Joanne's questions. So, number two, her second question. I would like to make my book available at a discount to libraries who don't return books. But I have no interest in having my book shelved in bookstores, as I feel most of my audience will be smart enough to order from Amazon. And that way I can keep all of my reviews in one place and really develop my brand rather than having reviews scattered here, there, and everywhere. Is there a way to use IngramSpark for distribution to libraries, universities, and such only? Or if you distribute with IngramSpark, do you have to give the discount to everyone who wants it? And if you do, what's to stop that entity from buying your book cheap and then undercutting your price on Amazon? Okay, let me unpack this for you. She's referencing the fact that you have to have a substantial wholesale discount, like usually 55% on IngramSpark for books if you want to have physical bookstore distribution. I have a really great video that goes into the math on wholesale discounts, so if you want that, I'll link to that at the end. To just answer Joanne's question here, it's the same as I already said, you can't dictate who Ingram sells to and who they can't. They won't even tell you. You just get aggregate numbers. Which is one of the things I find a little frustrating about ingramspark. Like if Barnes and Noble in Ohio is a hotspot, I might want to do a promotion and lean into that, but they'll never tell me. Or if the order of 26 books went to a library district or to a bookstore and where it went. Because if it's a bookstore, I want to make sure they sell out. But again, I. I don't get to know that. So you can't choose who gets your large wholesale discount and who doesn't. And you can't stop people from undercutting your price. Heck, you can't even stop Amazon from undercutting your price. Sometimes with hardcover books, we see some crazy low prices on Amazon, sometimes not set by us or our authors. We think this is because they have hardcover stock left, and since the book hasn't been selling, they cut the price by a lot to move their inventory. It's called print on demand, but that's not totally true. Amazon wants to make their quick delivery dates, and they need stock on hand to be able to do that. All right, Joanne's third question. If you're not willing to accept the risk of returns, is there any point in setting up your book on ingramspark? If books can be returned, what would stop bookstores from ordering 50 copies of your book? They have no risk. And then returning them. I know there's no way that I would ever want to take on that kind of risk. And then she asks why people would ever do that. All right, you don't have to accept returns. It's an option inside of the IngramSpark dashboard. You can tick it on or off. If you don't accept book returns, then your book is unlikely to be stocked in physical bookstores. Since you don't really want to sell your book through bookstores, not allowing returns is a good approach to limit the reach. Now why would someone want to allow it? Well, that's because they want to sell in bookstores. For many authors, being in a bookstore is their dream. To see their book on a shelf at the airport or in a bookstore. They want to reach the audience that buys the book in those places. And it's not really worth the push it takes to get as a self published author. At least not for most authors. But if it's your dream and your goals, that's a totally different thing. But Joanne's right, it is a risk. And I've experienced some pretty substantial return bills and so have some of our authors. And again, the frustrating part is lack of disclosure on the part of ingramspark with regards to the cause or the source of the returns. You won't know what happened or where they came from. All right, question four. Since nowadays we have search engines, what difference does it make how many places your book is available? As long as it's available somewhere. If I want to buy a book, the first place I look is Amazon. If I can create the demand for my book and if people want it and can only get it at Amazon, what would the problem with that be? And then she said she enjoys my videos, so thank you. All right, so my personal concern with this is that Amazon already has a lot of power and control. If you let them be the only source of selling your book and they terminate your account for some reason and just go read all the comments on my video on account termination to see how widespread this is, then you have nothing. All your traffic is directed to somewhere that won't let you sell your book. Not as bad, but also concerning is what they have done to authors with their hold on audiobooks. They set the price so you can't even control what you make and Audible is the big big dog in town. And believe me, I've tried to sell audiobooks through Spotify and other platforms and it is a trickle compared to the steady stream of Audible sales. But having them set the price, not letting you run promotions or have any control at all over how your book is priced is uncomfortable and not really fair. So it's a choice to give Amazon all your business as an author and many, many authors make it and some are very happy about it. I personally believe competition and not giving any one giant company even more power is the best way to go in the long term as an author community, which is why I always promote wide distribution and encourage library distribution, indie stores, bookstores and more. But that's my choice and stance. It's not right or wrong, it's a position. All right, I hope to see you on a future video. Joanne, thanks for your questions. Now, do you have a question? I'd love to support you, so go ahead and post it below after you hit like and subscribe to the channel with the notifications on. And when you comment the day a video is released, you get entered to win some sweet noboringbookswag like T shirts, our mugs. We have an oh so soft journal. You get copies of my books and so much more. Now there's a lot to watch after this video on like whether bookstores matter. I do some math. This one on KDP versus IngramSpark, the original one, this one over here on wholesale discounts, and this one on library listings. Wowee. You guys got lots to watch. Now I'll see you over there. I'm also the author of two really helpful books for nonfiction authors. Self Self Publish and Succeed and Self Promote and Succeed. Let's do that again please. I don't remember my I've written so many books, I don't remember all the titles. That's.
