Hope that helps. After reading through this thread and doing some other research, I have to say that CreateSpace looks a little bit friendlier. Also, does CreateSpace only market to Amazon, or are they like Ingram and go to bookstores, schools, libraries, etc.?
This gives you maximum flexibility, including the ability to name the publisher of the book you, or some micropublishing company you create. The problem with the free CS ISBN numbers is that CreateSpace becomes the publisher of record when displayed on your Amazon page—something a lot of authors want to hide. As for your question about marketing, remember: none of these companies actually markets your book. They distribute your book.
You market your own book. So let me rephrase your question: Does CS only distribute to Amazon, or are they like IS and distribute to bookstores, school, libraries, etc.? Amazon will distribute to pretty much anybody—bookstores, schools, libraries—just like Ingram. However, if you want even a chance of seeing your book in bookstores and libraries, using CS is NOT the way to go. It is possible that I could use the same ISBN number purchased from Bowker and listing my pseudo-company as the publisher.
As an aside, I want multiple ISBN numbers because I foresee eventually rereleasing my novel in mass-market paperback the first edition is in trade paperback. I also may release another version with significant changes due to feedback on the first version.
In that case. I would be required to use different ISBNs so everyone can tell one version from the other. You raise an interesting point, Edward.
These two behemoths should quit the infighting at the expense of the reader and writer IMHO. If people like you start to use two ISBN numbers for the same edition, it may cause some unforeseen problems. I publish a yearly calendar with articles and my selling season is November to January. Last winter almost every single order sent outside the UK where my account is registered was late, and in some cases, lost.
At the beginning they replaced the delayed orders. Then decided not to. Yes, delivery is still a problem with IS. I think they do that intentionally to force you to buy their more expensive tracked version. Then under the Distribute tab, click on Channels. Click there. This works different from the Ingram Spark discount codes.
Think of it more like a place where you can set up a discount coupon for a specific customer. The discount will be applied by Createspace when they check out. But I noticed recently that Ingram Spark has begun to require that if you want Ingram to distribute your book to bookstores, you must NOT select the Expanded Distribution channels in Createspace which promise distribution into bookstores. It looks like you must give Ingram exclusive distribution to bookstores in order to play ball with them.
I appreciate not only the thorough article but the great comment threads, too! While getting into bookstores is important, the cost of such could really kill an indy writer and publisher. One such thing almost killed us. An author had a signing and the bookstore order copies happy dance for us. But when the dust settled, they returned 50 of them. It would have been a lot less if we ordered the books. Then they charged us the wholesale value, not print cost, of the book.
So we sold books and because of them the 50 books that returned killed all profit from the signing. Guess how much that cost our small company?
Almost closes the doors and makes me wonder why we use Ingram. CS seems superior, but I am wondering — who offers the better distribution?
The ability to move books is more important than distribution, I suppose, but I wonder which one really gives us the best chance to reach the most readers. Very helpful and in depth information here, Holly, thank you very much!
Is there a way to subscribe to your blog? Just to clarify, Ingram Spark is not the first to offer hardback copies. Do both of them make my book available on various stores for ex Amazon. Exp: I mean I just need to sign up with amazon. Everything goes automatic. I need to work on everything like I get an order from Amazon.
Exp: Is it like they have tie up with major book stores and CS and IS will represent our books to those stores? How that world wide distribution works? What are the benefits? It will work like I need to call various book chains and book their orders. Then I need to put those orders manually into CS and IS account and then they will distribute the orders to them.
Another thing is the return of the books? What is the situation when a book store returns the books? How will they manage it? Will CS and IS send those books to my address and deduct the money from my account?
I meaning the flow of return is confusing me. I am from India and want to sell my books globally, so what are the tax situations of which I need to take care about in selecting the POD services. Specifically, you upload the final files for your book to either CreateSpace or Ingram Spark. Within a few days, your book shows up for sale on Amazon.
When someone orders your book through Amazon, one of the two companies prints one copy and ships your book off to that customer. If you now buy books from Amazon in India, then your book can be bought in India by others. Regarding taxes, US authors have to fill out tax forms so that the US government can properly tax the royalties that an author gets from the sale of his or her book.
Thanks for the article, Holly. Has anyone noticed a difference in printing quality between a CreateSpace and IngramSpark paperback? After going through seven proofs where the printing was fine, I released a book on CreateSpace and ordered 26 copies to sell personally. This latter problem can be mitigated by designing a spine that is the same color as the front and back of the book, and making sure that the type on the spine has ample space around it.
The covers were literally flaking off, so right out of the box, they looked horrible. We had continued to use Lightning Source, who I always thought was better anyway, but in the last 3 or so years, their quality has taken a nosedive. I keep seeing all these article about the CreatSpace vs.
Print-on-demand technologies and their accompanying quality assurance teams in these two companies are probably not as good as what you can get from a short-run printer, but they do offer one-off printing and distribution. There are many of them these days because the business of printing has moved in that direction.
So why would bookstores even know it was published at Create Space? Any colour books ordered in Australia will be printed in the US and shipped to Australia, which is why the shipping time is longer. Because of this there can be more issues to do with transport and damage to stock. You can find the links to these on their website. They can even send you out a sample pack for the colour books to show you the difference between the colour options. The books are generally live on Amazon within a week or two, and other online vendors are the same.
The only thing about the six to eight week message is that not all details of the book may come up as live right away. For instance, I see book covers take substantially longer to display, which is terrible practice. That can include misrepresenting the RRP. What are the pros and cons of this? Thank you. An ISBN is the unique number that associates your book with your publishing company, not with the vendors who are printing books on your behalf.
So you want to assign a separate ISBN to each edition of your book in each of its specific formats hardcover, softcover, ebook, etc. Booksellers and customers can then use your ISBNs to make sure that they get the version they want.
Ah, IngramSpark. Their second claim is definitely not true. They never expire. You can hire a book designer, or you can do it yourself using a template. These are pre-formatted Word docs that require you to paste your text over the sample text in the doc. And the designs are quite nice. There are other sites that offer templates for no cost. This is very helpful information and eases my concerns.
Our book went up last Monday and by Wednesday it was sold out. That is when it was saying that the book delivery was going to be delayed. Thanks Holly for being so helpful. In defense of Ingram Spark our start up fee was waived when we ordered some books. Do you know what the typical wait time is for those who opt to print on demand?
Specifically, when a customer orders from Amazon or Barnes and Noble what is a reasonable delivery time? When it first went up on Amazon we had a great response but I am a little hesitate to market it heavily until the wait time decreases. Should I worry about this or just go for it? Hi Julie, If you book has been set up on Ingram Spark, Amazon purchases a set quantity from Ingram Spark and stocks that amount on their shelves.
Amazon then fulfills very quickly within a day, usually from that inventory. Hope this is helpful. So far none of our customers have received their books from amazon. We just published a book through Ingram Spark. We are up on amazon and barnes and noble but the delivery date keeps changing for the customer.
Should be go through the whole process again and try Createspace? The books we ordered to sell on our own came quickly and are nice quality. Any suggestions? Hi Julie, Do you mean that the delivery date on the Amazon page keeps changing? If you want a faster, more consistent delivery date on the Amazon page, then yes, set up an account on CreateSpace and upload the same files. I then called them two time over a period of a week. There first time I was on hold for 40 minutes before I gave up.
And a week later I called and waited for 45 minutes before hanging up. The music itself is probably designed to make people hang up. Prior to IngramSpark, I was with their parent company, Lightning Source, which was every bit as awful.
My account rep was an absolute nightmare. She was cold in her manner and never went out of her way to help. It depends. The best company for photography books is Blurb. Createspace and Ingram Spark can also do those kinds of books.
But you may have trouble finding a company to do a book with a page count as low as that. Are you aware if that is still happening? No, I have heard nothing like this. In general, the quality of CreateSpace covers has been pretty good. Ingram Spark has improved a bit since I posted this piece.
They also seem to have figured out a way to ship proof copies for less. Their sales reports are particularly difficult for decipher.
If you decide to use them, they will make you feel a bit clueless. Thanks for increasing my knowledge. I am a newbie author.
Wanted to know the following. To begin with, can you tell me your book which is published through Ingram so I could perhaps order one real book and see the production quality etc. Can it be ordered through Amazon? For the cover page I plan to use shutterstock image which I will pay and download? Is it okay to use it? Do I have to write inside my book that the image was downloaded from shutterstock?
Do I need to use a professional illustrator to do this or do I have to buy a software package to do this. Mine is a small book. If I decide to publish on Ingram, can I opt to publish hardcover with jacket cover and soft cover paperback. Is it very expensive? When you use Bowker www.
You download it in eps or similar format, and place it just as you would place a photo onto your book jacket. It should go on the bottom right of the back cover. QR codes are easy to generate. The spellchecker and grammar checker included with Microsoft Word are generally useful. But no technology can replace the skilled eye of a human editor. With Ingram Spark, you can publish a hardcover with dust jacket, a softcover and an ebook, or any combination thereof. Ingram Spark make most of its money by taking a cut of whatever you earn when you sell a book.
In fact, they charge multiple shipping costs for bulk orders. For this reason I have switched to IS. What do you think of Ingram Spark?
But do yourself a favor and give it a thorough going-over or—better yet—give it to someone else to look for errors. But you do have two important decisions to make: Standard or Expanded distribution and Pricing. In Standard Distribution , which is free, CreateSpace makes your title available in two channels: Amazon.
The eStore is a simple webpage for your book that has your cover, a description, and a CS shopping cart that handles customer purchases check mine out here. I think of the eStore simply as a way for your customers to go direct to the printer as opposed to a distributor Amazon, in this case. The important difference for the writer is that you get a higher royalty from customers who go to the eStore as opposed to buying it on Amazon. For the customer, the price is the same and the only major difference is that Amazon Prime members cannot use their free shipping on eStore purchases.
In addition to Amazon. Because these channels expect and need a deep discount in order to sell your book, your royalty on each book is severely decreased when sold through these entities see Pricing, below. You have to go through a completely different process to create a Kindle version, and that file will require a different format as well.
If you don't know how to create that format, then you may have another cost associated with creating the e-book. Someone feel free to correct me if I'm out of date, it's been a while since I set up a book with Create Space, but:. Basically, you can get set up for free with Create Space.
I believe you are required to print and pay for at least one proof copy for you to review and insure that it is coming out the way you want, so there is that up-front cost. At one time you had to pay a fee to have the book made available for distribution anywhere other than amazon. I think they no longer charge that fee. So it's not "free" in the sense that Create Space will print all these books and do a whole bunch of work for you for nothing, just because they love you and want to help you out or something.
It's "free" in the sense that there is no setup charge or up-front cost, other than the proof copy. You can get started without giving them any cash, they'll just take their cut out of the cash that would have gone back to you. By "free" it is clear that you mean "without up-front monetary cost. For some authors, under some circumstances, those terms may be onerous. Only you can decide. In my case, I will not accept those terms, so I do not deal with CreateSpace. That's me. However, a new author with limited expectations would probably not find the terms onerous possibly even advantageous to the author.
Oh: Always get a proof copy. I have the benefit of professional editing, and there are still errors that remain. Only visible when seen "as printed," because I'm old enough to see it that way. I've published a few books with createspace. I do the formatting myself, so the cost is only when I order a proof or the printed books. The only setback is because I'm from another country so the shipping charge is costly. Sign up to join this community. The best answers are voted up and rise to the top.
Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Ask Question. Asked 7 years, 1 month ago. Active 4 years, 7 months ago. Viewed 15k times. People can buy a print-on-demand copy of the book from Amazon. People can buy a Kindle or e-book copy optional, if free I will use it.
I don't need other services such as international selling, advertising, special bar codes, etc. Improve this question. Village Village 4 4 gold badges 14 14 silver badges 28 28 bronze badges. This question appears to be off-topic because it is about how Amazon works. Of course, they take a cut from every sale. Look here: createspace. Then you get to keep ALL the money from the 5 books that your family buys. Congratulations on stickin' it to da man!
Show 5 more comments. Active Oldest Votes. The book publishing industry is moving from the traditional publishing model to digital publishing and this is changing the way books are sold. We now know that the majority of books are now purchased online. If we are smart, we will target sales to the online book buyer, and limit marketing efforts to the physical book stores.
If you must market to the book stores, I suggest you limit efforts to the smaller percentage and invest most of your efforts in online book sales opportunities. With limited time and advertising budget, its best to select the channels that give the most bang for the buck. The CreateSpace estore is available the moment your book files approved for publishing. The advantages to selling your books through CreateSpace is that they will collect the money, print, and ship the books to your readers.
They credit your account with the profit after the costs covered. This simplifies your life as you will not be responsible for shipping, inventory, sales taxes, or credit card processing.
To make your book available through the CreateSpace estore, you will first need to open an account with CreateSpace.
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