Book publishing platform KDP vs. IngramSpark: Which is Better?
There is a wide array of options for all of you budding, independent writers to get your books up and running in the market. But you might have a question, “Which publishing service should you use for your book?” The answer to this question is not simple enough, but we can narrow it down to two of the publishing giants, KDP and IngramSpark. But still nailing it down to one, we must know, “Which one is better: KDP or IngramSpark?”
Costs Management:
Amazon’s KDP allows you to publish your books digitally for no charge at all and even lets you make changes and update your books without charging a single dime. Contrastingly, IngramSpark charges $49 to publish your book initially and then charges $25 every time you make an updated version.
Now for newcomers, they view KDP as more welcoming, which rightfully leads KDP in the KDP vs. IngramSpark race.
Printing and Distribution of Books:
Although both KDP and IngramSpark offer similar options for printing, it is worth noting that KDP allows writers to juggle between print and digital forms of their books. Essentially, this helps increase their customer acquisition and enables the upselling of print forms to the customers of digital form.
Since KDP is Amazon’s publishing portal, so many distribution services view it as a competitor, contributing to KDP’s distribution range contraction. On top of that, KDP also reduces the royalty rate if you choose to use other bookstores to sell your books rather than Amazon. Additionally, IngramSpark has a wide network of distributors while also providing you the option of varying royalty rates concerning different territories.
Although KDP provides flexibility in printing options, we need to acknowledge the distribution power of IngramSpark as well, which matters more in terms of the sale of books. Therefore, this checkpoint of IngramSpark vs. KDP must go to IngramSpark.
Royalty Rates:
Like the McDonald brothers, we writers also appreciate higher royalty rates for our work, and it seems that IngramSpark might take the lead here as well. Statistically speaking, IngramSpark offers royalty rates of around 68% instead of the 60% royalty rates offered by KDP.
Minor Factors becoming the deciding factors:
KDP and IngramSpark both provide free barcodes to the writers for their books, but there seems to be a slight difference. KDP does not provide any flexibility for the location of the barcode on the book. Still, IngramSpark not only possesses this feature but also offers multiple cover templates and designs to make not only your book appealing rather also making IngramSpark appealing to you as well.
One of the important features of the book also includes ISBNs, and remarkably, both KDP and IngramSpark give free ISBNs to your books. However, there is a downside to this. Using the ISBNs provided by both limits you to a very small number of distributors reducing your market range altogether. Therefore, it is better to buy your concerns with ISBN to allow yourself the flexibility to sell anywhere.
Conclusion:
Although it was a neck-to-neck match, we can safely say that IngramSpark has a slight edge over KDP. Therein, we should always explore our options until we settle on something we find comfortable.
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