IngramSpark Review - Should YOU Self-Publish with IngramSpark?

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IngramSpark Review - Should YOU Self-Publish with IngramSpark?
In this video, Jay Sherer breaks down his self-publishing experience with IngramSpark's self-publishing service. Should YOU use IngramSpark to self-publish your next book?

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WRITING RESOURCES FOR SELF-PUBLISHED AUTHORS:
Marketing 101 for Self-Published Authors (Jay's eLearning Course): https://mailchi.mp/14fa87070d6a/marke...

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VIDEO TRANSCRIPT (PARTIAL):
IngramSpark Review - Should YOU Self-Publish with IngramSpark?

If you’re looking to self-publish a book, you’ve got a LOT of partnership options available to you. In this video, I’ll be reviewing one of those options: IngramSpark.

IngramSpark is a self-publishing service. IngramSpark offers Print-on-Demand options and an ebook distribution service, which means that they can print small quantities of books quickly and easily as well as distribute your ebook to online book stores.

Those are both huge benefits for self-publishers... BUT working with a distributor—as opposed to working directly with a retailer, like publishing through Amazon directly—also creates some additional challenges.

As far as book formats go, IngramSpark supports ebooks, paperback books, and even hardcover books. And that last point is important because many of the retailers who offer self-publishing services do NOT support hardcover formats.

But, the services retailers offer are always changing, so just verify that before you choose a service for your self-published book.

Let’s start with the benefits of self-publishing through IngramSpark.

The first, as I just mentioned, is that you’ve got the option to publish a hardcover version.

Second, distribution through IngramSpark is SUPER simple.

And the third advantage of self-publishing through IngramSpark: With one major exception—IngramSpark’s interface is fairly simple and straightforward, which makes submitting your self-published book pretty easy.

So let’s jump into that—the drawbacks of using IngramSpark… and some of those drawbacks may be deal-breakers for you.

First: My biggest complaint about IngramSpark… is their reporting.

IngramSpark reports ebook sales data anywhere from 25 to 55 days AFTER an ebook sale has occurred!

Now, that’s bad enough, but I also have one other major issue with IngramSpark’s reporting. Based on my analysis of their data, they report book sales for the wrong month.

Meaning that, they report book sales—particularly ebook sales—NOT for the month the book was actually sold, but rather in the month the report the book was sold became available, which, as I’ve already said, is delayed.

Which brings me to another drawback: My experience with IngramSpark’s customer service varies.

And, my FINAL drawback—and this is likely true for ANY distribution service you use, especially Print-on-Demand services… their ease-of-distribution is going to cut into your royalty percentage.

If you self-publish direct through a retailer, the retailer takes a cut, and you get the rest. If you self-publish through a distributor, both the distributor and the retailer take a cut, and you get less.

If I had published direct through Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing service, I would have had instant access to sales data AND I would not have had IngramSpark taking a percentage of my royalties.

THE BOTTOM LINE:

Overall, I’d give IngramSpark a C grade or maybe a 5.5/10.

I recommend IngramSpark if:

One: You want the convenience of wide distribution, without having to do a lot of that work yourself.

Two: You want a hardcover edition of your book.

But, if your main focus will be ebook sales, I don’t recommend IngramSpark because of the data and reporting issues I’ve talked about.

I’d consider using IngramSpark in the future if I want to self-publish a hardcover edition, but not if I’m focused on an ebook option.

I talk a lot about distribution options for self-published authors in my eLearning course: Marketing 101 for Self-Published Authors. If you feel overwhelmed with all the marketing options and you need some foundation marketing knowledge, take my course! You’ll get the confidence boost you need to make better decisions. For more info, click the link in the description down below.

What self-publishing services have YOU used? Help out your fellow self-published authors! Leave me a comment and let everybody watching know.

Thanks for watching, and don’t forget to SUBSCRIBE and click the bell for notifications.

Keep writing, keep grinding, and I’ll see you on the next video...