KDP vs IngramSpark: Who Wins?

[Music] welcome to my youtube channel i am a full-time self-published author and this video is going to bring self-publishing tips and tricks to you these topics are for everyone writing in every genre from prospective authors to experts i hope you enjoy this video hello fellow self publishers so today i'm going to be talking about the difference between kdp and engram spark so both of these options if you haven't heard of them before are print on demand options what print on demand means is when somebody orders your book it will then be printed and shipped to them that means you're not printing a ton of books and storing them yourself you're not the one shipping or anything like that it is all an automated system which is really great for passive authors so you can have your books being sold and shipped and printed without you knowing any of the wiser [Music] so let's get started first off with ease of use between the platforms kdp is a lot easier to use and that is just because the user interface is so much more clean and well organized than in gram spark and graham spark recently went through an update to try and make it easier but it is still very confusing for a lot of people however once you get the hang of in graham spark it isn't too hard but overall a lot of people do think kdp is easier to use and i am definitely in the boat that kdp is easier to use but ingramspark isn't hard it's just different if you're having trouble either way uploading your book to ingramspark or kdp i am going to be recording the full process of uploading your book to each individual platform and going through every single step with you now if you are in the future these videos may already be out so make sure you check the description and i will go ahead and put them in there as soon as they come out if they are not out yet just know they are coming soon so make sure you subscribe so when they do come out you can follow along and upload your book and i will answer any question about every single box that you have to fill out along the way that way the uploading process for each will be very clear and easy to understand and follow [Music] so we're going to now talk about the cost so how much are they going to charge you to print your book and ship it to you so shipping will vary depending on where you are and how many books you order obviously the more you order the less the shipping is going to be overall because you can divide that amongst all the books to help with your profits but if you are ordering from kdp and you have a 32 page color children's book just like mine we have in the example kdp is going to charge you about three dollars and 65 cents plus shipping ingram spark is going to charge you for their paperback 2.83 plus shipping and the hardcover they are going to charge you seven dollars and 43 cents plus shipping so overall for paperbacks ingramspark is going to be cheaper if you're stocking them and selling them yourself and that's going to be the cheapest book option for you [Music] so now let's talk about our profits so profits are also going to vary based on what you price your book at the more you charge the more you're going to profit the less you charge the less you're going to profit what i do encourage is to make sure you are at least breaking even and you are having enough to pay yourself to pay for advertising and to pay for any cost associated with the book so designing illustrating formatting printing all of that you want to have covered in your profits so when you're looking at how much you make per book make sure you are covering your cost as well as paying yourself i know so many of us it is so easy to forget to pay yourself and that's one of the things i always forgot to calculate in there when i was very first getting started with entrepreneurship is pain myself so don't forget that and again profits will vary ingramspark does have the option for a wholesale discount this is going to be the main place where you are deciding how much you get paid per book your wholesale discount can be zero percent your wholesale discount can be 55 so depending on what you make that that is up to you i am going to put a link in the description to my ingramspark settings and what i do for my books but for the sake of this video the profits are a little bit of the same overall i would say you're going to make more profit on kdp [Music] so we are now going to talk about color and quality so there is a very minor difference between kdp and ingram spark the paperback and hardcover both are the exact same color printed through in gramspark so there isn't any variance between the paperback and hardcover version but between the ingramspark versions and the kdp version there is a very minor color and quality difference the kdp version has a little bit more of a vibrant color in my opinion and it also has a shinier pages which i personally really like the ingramspark version has a bit of a thicker sturdier map page and i do pay for upgraded paper in my books i get the mid tier of the paper thickness that way i can have a little bit more rigidness in my books and i really do like the thicker paper with ingram spark because that allows for the illustrations not to bleed through or shine through also if you're doing full printed spreads like i do sometimes the ink will weight down their paper and on the lowest quality you may get some ripples which you absolutely don't want your customers receiving so it is worth the cost to just go ahead and upgrade your paper to that next step but in terms of quality i have people prefer my ingram spark versions i have people prefer my kdp versions there has not been and been any complaints between the two or any preferences between the two i personally lean more towards kdp just because i do like the glossiness of the pages that's something that i personally just enjoy however again the customers and readers do prefer both versions so i can't say that one or really wins out over the other here and i really do love the quality of the hardcover books through ingramspark so it's a it's a tough tie there [Music] so overall what i do recommend is using them all together i don't think it's a competition between engram spark and kdp so if you're leaning to use just one or the other i highly encourage you to use both together and you are allowed to do so so i do sell two paperback versions one kdp and one in gramspark and then i do sell my ingramspark hardcover this gives me a huge reach to an audience where kdp is fulfilling all my amazon orders and schools and libraries and bookstores are able to order my ingram spark paperbacks and hardcovers and i can fulfill orders that way as well so it is the best of both worlds if you do use them both combined together and you can do so as long as you don't click expanded distribution when you are creating your book on kdp i hope this video helped don't forget to give it a thumbs up and subscribe if you found it helpful i have tips and tricks about self-publishing coming out all the time so you won't want to miss the next video so go ahead and click that bell notification icon so you can get the first notification of the next video being published i will see you all next time and happy [Music] publishing [Music] you

Channel: Bethany Stahl

Views: 10,946

Rating: 4.9539347 out of 5

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Id: J33gpsF2iHc

Length: 10min 2sec (602 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020