Ingram Spark Versus Createspace for Quality of Print Books

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Hi, this is Shelly Hitz. And today I want to talk to you about the quality between IngramSpark and Create Space for print Books. So many of you use CreateSpace. That's who I have used and I've recommended for years. And yet there are certain of my colleagues that say you need to use IngramSpark. You need to use them because their quality is better. And there were a couple things that happened in this past year that really had me realize that it was time to look into IngramSpark. The first thing is CreateSpace changed their policy on ISBNs. And with CreateSpace, they used to have a $10 option where you could purchase an ISBN for $10 and use it just for CreateSpace. But then that would give you the ability to add your publishing company name. As most of you know, I recommend independent publishing. That means you're establishing your own publishing company. It's a lot easier than you think. You can get started very simply. But with the $10 ISBN option, it allowed us to publish print books without having to purchase ISBNs from my identifiers, either in a big bulk or have to put out all front. Because our business has often operated on very tight cash flow margins. My husband and I don't use credit and so if we don't have it, we don't spend it. And so that was an option we used for many years. But CreateSpace recently changed their policy on it. They no longer have the $10 ISBN. So you either have to pay $99 per ISBN or buy a package from my identifiers don't. So we bought a package of 100 ISBNs when they were on sale. What happens is when you have your own ISBN, you can do both CreateSpace and IngramSpark. Now I share a lot more detail of the tips that I've learned as I went through the process for the first time inside Author Audience Academy. But in today's video, I really wanted to share with you a little bit about the quality difference because a lot of people have told me over the years that the quality is different. So for my book, Broken Crayons Still Color, I was getting ready to publish it. And first of all, like I said, CreateSpace had changed their ISBNs and we had already purchased our own package of ISBNs from my identifiers. Second of all, IngramSpark did a special during. I think it was October and November, where if you published a new book during that time, you could get your setup fees waived. That was the other thing that kind of set me back from trying ingramspark is they have setup fees. So those fees were waived during that time. So I thought, you know what? This is the perfect time to try ingramspark. So I have my book here in both versions, I have the sticky Note on the IngramSpark copy, and I wanted to show you a little bit of the quality difference with CreateSpace versus IngramSpark. Now on the COVID I don't know if you can see this in. In the video, but this is the ingramspark proof. And it came out just a little bit different color. I don't know if you can tell. I think you can kind of see there, see how the ingramspark one's a little bit darker than this one. The colors came out a little bit brighter. They were a little bit better, I feel on the IngramSpark copy, I ended up on CreateSpace choosing the matte cover. The matte cover is what I personally prefer. It just feels more professional. The other cover, it's going to be more shiny. Now, some of you may want that shiny cover to it. I like the matte look to it, and it just feels. I don't know, it feels good. I really like that. So Craze Face has that option. So I chose the matte cover. They both actually feel about the same to me. The covers you can see, you know, look very similar on the back, except for the color. One thing I did notice on the spine for the CreateSpace one, it wasn't completely centered exactly right. So I think sometimes with CreateSpace, that will happen when they print something. Even though you have everything exactly specified for the size of your book, it may be off just a little bit. It's not that much. So I don't know if you can tell. It's not quite as centered on the CreateSpace side with my name, but other than that, everything else pretty much looks. Looks the same to me on the COVID One of the things I noticed was with the binding on the ingramspark, you don't really see much glue in there. On the CreateSpace one, you see a little bit more glue. I don't know if that makes any difference over time with the books, but that was a little bit of a difference. And then if you look inside at the images and the things inside the book, this was the CreateSpace, this is the IngramSpark. It really, to me, looks very similar. So let me get My, you know, two pages that are the same. To me, these look very, very similar and the printing looks very similar. One thing I did notice is if you feel the quality or the thickness of the paper, there is a little different feel. The IngramSpark paper feels a little smoother to me than the CreateSpace. So I'm not sure. It seems like maybe the paper is a little bit better quality with the ingramspark. The thickness actually feels fairly similar to me and you know, when you look at it through light. But it does seem like maybe the paper quality is a little bit better on IngramSpark. But that's really the only differences. I mean, the qualities seem very, very similar. So if you've had experiences with publishing on both CreateSpace and IngramSpark, let me know what has your experience been? What, what have you found with quality issues? Now I'm getting ready to publish my very first print children's book. And I really think for children's books that are full color and all of that, I. From the research I've done and from what I've heard, it does seem that ingramspark is a better platform for that type of book. This book that I did, broken crayons, still color. I think that the differences are small enough that it seems, you know, almost just as good as the CreateSpace model. So I have published this through CreateSpace for Amazon and then I published it on IngramSpark for all the other distributors and also so that I could be in the Ingram catalog for bookstores. However, for my children's book, I'm considering publishing it just on IngramSpark, depending on how it turns out. So what I may do is I may upload it to both get a proof from CreateSpace and decide, you know, I can do a comparison again and, and decide if I want to publish it on both like I did this time, or if I want to just do it on ingramspark. But there's so many options. This is such an incredible and exciting time to be an independent published author, to have your own publishing company, to be self publishing. There's so many options, there's so many things you can do. And I'm always sharing the things that I'm learning. And so I have a specific post inside Authorities Academy, where I shared the tips the that I've learned so far using ingramspark. It's in there. I'd love for you to join us. If you're not yet a member, you can join us@authoraudienceacademy.com this is a month for me where I'm taking a little bit more time off. I haven't been doing as many live videos, but I wanted to come on when I got back from vacation from Ohio. My proof had come back from ingramspark and so I thought this would be a great training to show you the difference because a lot of people will talk about the quality difference and I just wanted to show you that there were a few minor differences that I could see, but for the most part it didn't really seem to be that much different. So I'm going to head off for now. Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you found this training helpful and let me know in the comments if you have noticed any quality differences between IngramSpark and and create Space. I'd love to hear your experiences, your feedback, and I will see you next time.

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