IngramSpark puts a title into the wholesale catalogue that physical bookshops and libraries order from. It is also the platform with the most ways to get the file specification wrong.
Deciding to publish should be marked by the pleasure of finishing rather than by the complexity of the process, and IngramSpark is where that complexity concentrates. Its reach is the reason to use it: a network of retailers, bookshops, libraries and academic institutions that no direct-to-consumer platform matches.
The cost of that reach is precision. Trim, bleed, spine width, cover wrap and interior PDF all have to be exactly right, setup fees apply per format, and a rejected file costs time and sometimes money. The house handles that part so the decisions left to you are the ones that are actually yours.
Every stage of getting a book into the Ingram catalogue, available separately or together.
- 01
Publication setup
Account creation, title details, file upload and distribution channels, every administrative detail managed so the title goes live correctly the first time.
- 02
Editing
Developmental editing through to proofreading, with your voice preserved. A title going into library and bookshop channels is held to a visibly higher standard.
- 03
Cover design
A full cover wrap (front, spine and back) built to the exact spine width your page count and paper stock produce. This is where most independent IngramSpark titles fail.
- 04
Marketing
A plan built around who your readers are and where they are, including the trade-facing metadata that determines whether a bookseller can find your title at all.
- 05
Print quality
Paper stock, trim and interior typesetting chosen so the printed object is comfortable to read and does not announce itself as self-published.
Four things that matter on the platform with the widest reach and the least forgiveness.
- 01
Quality through the whole chain
From the first consultation to after publication. On a platform that reaches booksellers, a weak link anywhere is visible to the trade rather than only to readers.
- 02
Your book, specifically
Format, paper, pricing and channel selection follow what your book is and who it is for, rather than a default configuration applied to everything.
- 03
We know the specification
The file requirements are exacting and unforgiving, and the fastest way to learn them is to have submitted a lot of titles. You do not have to learn them at your own expense.
- 04
Support after publication
Sales tracked, royalties monitored, and the reporting explained, so you know how the book is doing in each channel rather than guessing from a dashboard.
Eight steps, and you approve a physical proof before a single copy is sold.
Manuscript preparation
The manuscript refined for structure, tone and consistency before any production work begins on top of it.
Account setup
Your IngramSpark account created and configured, the dashboard from which you will track the book's life.
Book setup
Formats chosen, book information entered, and manuscript and cover files uploaded to the platform's specification.
Distribution channels
The channels selected: online retailers, bookshops, libraries. These choices determine who can order your book and are worth making deliberately.
Pricing and royalties
Pricing set with you, with the discount and return settings explained, because those settings, not the cover price, determine whether a bookshop will order the title at all.
Proof
A proof produced for you to review. This is the moment to catch anything wrong with the print, and the last cheap opportunity to do so.
Global distribution
Once approved, the title enters Ingram's distribution network and becomes orderable worldwide.
Sales and royalties
Sales monitored and royalties tracked, with regular updates on how the book is performing in each channel.
A few of the people the house has worked with, in their own words.
I had eleven years of notes and no book. What I got back read like me on a good day, my turns of phrase, my arguments, and none of the padding I would have added myself. The first chapter arrived and I stopped worrying.
Marianne ElleryIndependent author The structural edit was not comfortable reading. It told me the second half started in the wrong place, which I had suspected for a year and nobody had said out loud. Moving three chapters fixed a problem I had been trying to solve with better sentences.
Devon AlukoIndependent author What sold me was being told I did not need half of what I had asked for. I came in wanting the full package and left with a cover, a proofread and an honest explanation of why the rest would not have helped yet.
Priya RaghunathanIndependent author Three cover directions, all of them plausible, none of them the thing I had described. The one I picked worked at the size that actually matters, I could recognise it in a list of forty other books, which is more than I can say for my first attempt.
Tobias HearnIndependent author I own the book outright and that was written down before I paid anything. After two years of being quoted percentages by people who would not put them in writing, that was the whole reason I stayed.
Cecile MarchandIndependent author The audiobook took longer than I expected and they told me why each time rather than going quiet. The narrator they cast got my grandmother's accent right, which I had assumed would be the thing I had to let go of.
Nathan BoakyeIndependent author
How IngramSpark works, without the marketing.
Create an account, then prepare your manuscript and cover to IngramSpark's specifications for file type, size, resolution and formatting. Upload both, enter the book's details (title, author, ISBN, description and pricing) and choose your territories and formats. Order a physical proof and check it properly. Once you approve it, the title becomes available through the distribution channels you selected.
Print-on-demand, so copies are printed as ordered and there is no inventory to fund or store. Ebook distribution to the major digital retailers, libraries and subscription services. And the global network (online retailers, physical bookshops, libraries and academic institutions) which is the main reason authors use IngramSpark rather than a single retailer's own platform.
Unlike some platforms, IngramSpark is not free. There is a one-time setup fee per format, printing costs that depend on trim size, page count and colour, and distribution fees per format. IngramSpark publishes cost calculators on its own site, and the fees change, so check the current figures there rather than relying on a number quoted on anyone's marketing page.
Yes. The platform supports both simultaneously, with separate details and pricing for each. Most authors should do both, the formats reach different readers, and having only one available means being unavailable to a substantial share of your potential readership.
Print-on-demand: books are printed and shipped as orders arrive, so nothing is warehoused. Orders placed through any of the distribution partners are fulfilled by Ingram directly, with standard and expedited shipping options and costs calculated by destination, weight and method. You are not involved in fulfilment at all.
You do, completely. The author holds 100% of the rights to their work, in every format, for its whole life. The house is paid for the work it does, not with a share of the book. That is the arrangement the house reopened in 2008 to offer, and it does not change with the tier, the price or the point at which you come to us.
Yes. Your name is on the cover and in the record. Everyone who works on the book (writer, editor, designer) works on your book, and none of them is credited on it unless you ask for them to be.
Yes. Your story is yours, and nothing about the project leaves the house. We will sign your NDA before you send anything, or supply ours if you would rather use one.
No. Six disciplines are available and you take the ones you need. Authors arrive here at every stage (with an idea, a half-draft, or a finished manuscript that only needs a cover and a shelf) and the work starts where you actually are.
It depends on the work: length, how much research is involved, how much of the book already exists, and which disciplines you need. There is no list price for a book, and any firm who gives you one before reading your material is quoting something other than your book. Tell us where you are and we will price the actual job.
Move the marker. You do not need to know what to call it: you only need to know where you are.
Tell us where your manuscript is, where you want it to go, and we'll show you what's possible.