Exclusive: IngramSpark Waives All Fees for Title Setup

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IngramSpark-WebsiteLogoIn our guest post this morning Ingram’s Robin Cutler revealed that IngramSpark will waive all fees when indie authors set up new titles during the months of April and May. Until now authors publishing a book through IngramSpark were subject to a fee of $49 for a print and e-book edition and $25 for an e-book edition. While the offer only officially runs until May  31st it does place IngramSpark in a very strong market position when compared to publishing platforms like CreateSpace, Lulu and Smashwords.

CreateSpace actually use Ingram’s distribution network for their global ‘Expanded Distribution’ option (beyond Amazon sales), but one of the irks often expressed to me by indie authors in the UK and the rest of the world is the fact that CreateSpace still insist on printing and shipping author copies from the United States, thereby incurring expensive shipping costs if you need your books quickly for an author event. It’s something I’ve never understood considering Amazon (owners of CreateSpace) has access to print facilities based in Milton Keynes in the UK. There is one work around for this — whisper it quietly! Before you order your own books from CreateSpace, reduce the retail price down to as low as the platform will allow, and then order your books directly through Amazon instead of your CreateSpace author dashboard. Then, simply increase your retail price back to its normal price point. That way your books will be printed via the Ingram print channels (closer to where you are located) and not from the USA, and this should offset the higher shipping charges and your author copies will also arrive sooner.

I guess that’s Ingram for you, even willing indirectly to help CreateSpace authors keep their costs down!

Authors

3 Comments

  1. Nigel J Copsey said:

    Thanks Mick. This is a really helpful piece of advice. I found that ordering my own books from CS was very expensive. This should make a big difference in future.

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