Do you know which distribution channel is the best? Here’s Amazon VS Ingram Spark, an epic book distribution battle.
Losing Control Over Your Book
Peter had already self-published his book on Ingram Spark. He could even see that his book was being distributed through Amazon as a result of this decision. There was no point in actually publishing it on Amazon as well, right?
Well, the answer is no and that's one of the reasons why in today's topic, we are going to discuss Amazon VS Ingram Spark (epic book distribution battle). The thing is that Peter is an author who lives in Seattle Washington and his books are within the religion and spirituality nation.
I run across a lot of people who publish a decent number of books within a number of these areas. So, Peter was trying to see if he could update different aspects of his sales page on Amazon. After having seen some of my videos where I talk about the importance of making sure that your sales page and author's bio are completely optimized.
To ensure you're going to get as many sales as possible when your books come out on Amazon. Well, the problem though was that he found that since he had put his books through Ingram Spark, he lost the ability to control the book descriptions.
He lost the ability to control his author's bio. He couldn't even change the pricing on Amazon since these books were not registered through Amazon. But at the same time, they were visible on Amazon.
Just low quality in the sense that the sales pages were not coming through correctly. He wasn't even having a look inside. The feature was not available. Then the additional question was about running ads.
They wouldn't show him his sales dashboard through Amazon. So, this created a whole series of problems for him. Because how exactly was he going to be able to optimize and ensure he was getting the maximum number of sales on Amazon if he had no control?
This is a big one that a lot of my students have. It's that if you give away your control, that is when we start making decisions or we lose the ability to make the decisions. We need this flexibility to maximize sales when we're publishing our books on these different platforms.
So, the first thing was he had heard about the importance of controlling your sales page. But he couldn't make the changes so he realized he was going to be losing all of these sales. He began to wonder if maybe he made the wrong choice and went with IngramSpark and that instead, he should have gone with KDP and Amazon Publishing.
Check out this related article: About IngramSpark - Self Publish Your Print or Ebook Today!
So, the first thing he did was he contacted IngramSpark and asked them about the distribution on Amazon. To see if there was a way that he could change the prices or if he could have some impact on what was showing up on the Amazon page. Even though he had registered this stuff through IngramSpark.
Or other people actually who had helped him put the book out there had done this. We can't help you; you're going to need to contact Amazon directly. So, then the second thing he did was he went to Amazon.
He asked them and said “Hey, can you help me?” I want to make these changes. They informed him that since his book had been published through IngramSpark, they were not going to be able to let him do that.
He could set up an author's central bio and could do these things. But his books would not be linked together because they were not published through Amazon itself natively. This was a huge problem for him so he was leaving him very frustrated.
So, what happened was he was reading some of the answers that I had done on Quora. Which is a place where I answer questions regularly regarding self-publishing. So, he decided to sign up for a free Discovery Session with me.
We were able to go back and forth and map out his self-publishing journey. To figure out what is the most strategic route to maximize sales. Also, to make sure that he maintains energy and the other things necessary to keep on when it comes to your self-publishing journey.
Putting Your Book On Other Platforms
So, the first thing we did was I commented to him from personal experience. After 200 books on Amazon and a huge percentage of that also on IngramSpark and running ads against it, there were several things that I've learned over the years. These were the things we were going to look at about his books.
So, the first thing was we want his books on both platforms and when we say on both platforms, we don't mean we put it on IngramSpark and let them pull it through to his Amazon profile. We mean we want it published all natively on both platforms.
It seems a little redundant but they go through different distribution channels. We can control what those sales pages and pricing structures look like in both locations. So that was the first thing.
The second thing is that on IngramSpark, they require you to have an ISBN code. You have to supply them with one for your paperback and one for your eBook that you will be putting onto that particular area. Whereas Amazon, give you both of them for free if you use Amazon first then move it over to IngramSpark.
You need new ones since those are owned by Amazon. You cannot use your Kindle Direct Publishing or KDP ISBN codes that you've got for free on any other site. They automatically assign it and that will be the only place you are allowed to use it.
But if you have started and you have them over on IngramSpark, they can be used on Amazon so you can use them on both. So as said, if you have an eBook on this site or 50 different distribution channel platforms, you can have the same one for all your eBooks.
You can have the same one for your paperback but you can't change format, sizing, and titles. Then have different ISBNs, it has to be the same. You can maximize your sales by maximizing your distribution and this is the important one.
That's one of the reasons why even with the eBook, I also would recommend using Draft2Digital to increase your distribution even further. I used to say Smashwords but they've been bought up by Draft2Digital. So, I would go with Draft2Digital to make sure that we're pushing it out.
We want as many people in the world to find our books. We want our books available everywhere, in bookstores and libraries. That is the number one way; to do it in as many formats as possible and as many distribution channels as possible.
But we are not going to natively publish it on Apple, iBooks, Kobo, and all these others. We do not want to have to do that. So that's another one. Then the next thing is that I make more money off of my paperback books on IngramSpark than I do on any other platform.
So, I would of course recommend going to IngramSpark. There are a few barriers on IngramSpark compared to going with Amazon. One of them is that you are required to pay a review fee which is about $50. Fortunately, you can Google it and they usually have free promo codes to skip the review fee.
Check out this related article: How to Sell eBooks without going through Amazon!
If you do your paperback version and your eBook version, you can pay $50. You can do both of them together and so this is the reason I always recommend that for you to do for the review side of things. Just find a free one and make sure you publish both versions of your eBook.
They use the EPUB format which is fantastic since Amazon also uses EPUB. They used to use a different one called Mobi but EPUB is the one I use because that's what they're recommending. I use the amazing software Jutoh to do the formatting to make sure the formatting is flawless.
But you can get the free ones that way. Or you can get four or five free promo codes a month if you join the Alliance for Independent Authors. So that's another option that you should consider. Not their lowest level but the next tier in terms of their membership program.
Being Available In Different Formats
The other thing that you need to remember is that you do have to supply the ISBN codes. But you can get them for free if you live in Norway or if you live in Canada. So, there are just many different options.
They've talked about the idea of making it possible to get them to supply the ISBN codes if you live in the United States. But I'm not sure if that is completely in place, let me know. So, after going through all of these steps with Peter, we were able to start to take a closer look.
To make sure that he was playing the strategic route when it comes to his books. But he still had to think about a lot of this. He found that the discovery session was incredibly helpful and I'm sure you also as a writer or author, you've already self-published it and will also find it helpful.
So just go ahead and book a free session. We can sit down and take a look specifically at your book with no commitment to buy anything, it’s free. We'll just take a look specifically at what you're doing and how you can optimize it.
So back to Peter, finally, he started moving along the process of setting up his account on KDP which took about only three minutes. And then getting metadata and all of this stuff that he had to do for IngramSpark onto his KDP account.
But then he saw that he needed a different cover for his paperback version. But he was able to use the same interior that he had used on IngramSpark on his KDP Print version. So, he realized this was a bit frustrating. He went back to his cover designer and told him what he needed.
He paid them the money and they were able to get it in the right format. So, he was able to then put it onto Amazon. Then at this point, once it went live along with his eBook, he didn't have to change anything, just his cover and the EPUB file, putting it right onto Amazon. He was then able to get these to link up correctly.
Check out this related article: How To Write, Publish, And Sell An Ebook
Now he controlled the prices of everything. He controlled the descriptions and he controlled his author's bio. So, if he had multiple books, they would all show up underneath the same author's bio. He was able to do that.
Whereas he was not able to do that previously. The first thing he started to see was an increase in sales on IngramSpark which was unbelievable. But again, those books are also for sale on Amazon.
When we're optimizing our pages, our author's bio and our pricing, and all of these things, it has an impact on our entire distribution channel. Not just one of the areas that we're distributing the books. In addition, he started seeing sales coming in through Amazon.
It wasn't as high as IngramSpark and in reality, I have never had a student who made more money off Amazon than IngramSpark. But I would say that you want to be in both locations because there are exceptions to the rule. People love to buy books in different locations.
We want to be everywhere where people are. We want our books in formats where it makes it very easy to get them. Now some people just don't like to go on Amazon because they view it as monopolistic and these sorts of things.
So, they may choose to go to IngramSpark instead. And that's one of the reasons why you're going to want to check out my video on Confronting Jeff Bezos | Exposing Amazon KDP Monopoly.