KDP or IngramSpark: where to print your book

Amazon’s KDP and IngramSpark are both print-on-demand: no inventory, no upfront print run, the book manufactured when ordered. The similarity ends at the business model. KDP is a retailer with a printer. IngramSpark is the book trade’s warehouse with a printer — Ingram runs one of the world’s largest book-distribution networks, the system bookshops and libraries already order through, and the service exists to put a book into that catalogue.

Choosing between them is choosing where the copies are sold, and the answer is different per channel — which is why the end state for most seriously distributed books is both.

What each one is

KDP prints the editions Amazon sells on Amazon. It is free to set up, fast to fix, and pays the strongest per-copy royalty on Amazon sales: 50 or 60 per cent of the list price minus printing cost, the percentage depending on the list price and marketplace. Its reach outside Amazon, expanded distribution, is real: eligible paperbacks become available to bookstores, libraries and online retailers through distributors. It is also slow — up to eight weeks to go live — with no guarantee a given shop orders, a lower royalty on those copies (40 per cent minus printing), and no hardcover eligibility at all.

IngramSpark puts the book into the Ingram catalogue, which is the ordering system bookshops, libraries and other retailers actually use. An order from any of them routes to the nearest Ingram printer, the book is printed and shipped, and the retailer deducts its wholesale discount before remitting the rest — Ingram says 53 to 55 per cent plus returnability buys the widest bookstore availability, and the permitted minimum has moved before, so check it. Setup is free since 2023, for the account and for each title; what Ingram charges instead is a distribution fee on wholesale sales, a small percentage of list that has also moved — the current rate card is the only place to read it. And it offers returns, which many bookshops want before they will shelve a title.

The per-copy arithmetic, honestly

The two services pay differently because they are selling to different buyers:

Sale	Via KDP	Via IngramSpark
A customer buys on Amazon	50–60% of list minus print cost	Wholesale discount deducted — materially less
A bookshop orders the book	Expanded distribution, eventually, if it orders	Trade sale at your chosen discount
A library orders the book	Expanded distribution, eventually, paperbacks only	Routine — libraries order through Ingram
Another retailer orders it	Expanded distribution, eventually	Direct from the catalogue

The consequence that surprises people: with the same ISBN on both services, Amazon may source some of its own customers’ copies from Ingram at wholesale terms, which pays you less than a KDP-sourced copy. That is a property of the arrangement, not a misconfiguration — Amazon decides where it sources, and there is no toggle to stop it. The setting that is yours to get right: leave KDP expanded distribution off for an ISBN that lives in Ingram’s catalogue. KDP requires that an expanded-distribution ISBN not be submitted for distribution elsewhere, and Ingram instructs publishers using both services to keep it off. The standard wide setup: Amazon editions on KDP, expanded distribution off, everything else through Ingram.

The ISBN dependency

IngramSpark requires an ISBN for trade distribution, but not necessarily one you bought: it offers free ISBNs to US publishers, usable only inside Ingram’s ecosystem — the same trade KDP’s free ISBN makes, with a different landlord. For one edition to live on both services, the clean route is one owned ISBN used on both: an ISBN belongs to an edition and its publisher, not to a distributor, and it follows the book to whatever channel sells it. Assigning a fresh ISBN to the same edition to separate channels is the one move the ISBN system itself warns against — it confuses retailers and splits the edition’s sales record.

This is the moment the ISBN decision becomes a purchase: trade distribution on terms you control and owned ISBNs are the same decision.

Quality and proofs

Both services print well; the differences are marginal and per-title. What matters is the same for both: order the proof. A proof costs print price plus shipping, arrives in days, and is the only test that involves your hands — the cover finish, the ink density, the binding, the trim. The print-ready checklist catches what files get wrong; the proof catches what files get right.

One print difference is not marginal. Ingram’s manufacturing adds a barcode page and, when the interior’s page count is odd, a blank page to even the count — so the manufactured book can run a page or two over the PDF you uploaded. Paper specifications differ between the services too, and both facts change the spine width, which changes the cover. A book published through both needs its cover generated from each service’s own final page count and template, per setting up a cover file — never scaled from the other’s.

The decision, per book

• Amazon-only audience — an ebook-first author adding a paperback for the listing: KDP alone. Simplest, cheapest, fully sufficient.
• Amazon plus a real-world presence — launch events, local shops, libraries: KDP for Amazon with expanded distribution off, IngramSpark for the trade. The common end state.
• Trade-first book — a library market, academic reach, the gift-shop circuit: IngramSpark carries it, with KDP supplying the Amazon listing.

And the sequencing rule from publishing generally: the interior and its page count come first. Both services price, bind and shelve from the page count; both print from the same PDF; and the cover waits on each service’s final count either way. The distribution choice is a business decision that can be made late. The book is not.

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The two services answer two different questions — where do Amazon’s customers buy this and where does the book trade order this from — and the confusion comes from asking one of them to answer both. Once separated, the choice per edition is usually obvious.

Nueel exports the print-ready PDF either service requires, and checks it against each platform’s published requirements before the upload rather than after the rejection.

Sources

• IngramSpark, Pricing, Free ISBNs and Global book distribution
• KDP, Expanded distribution and Paperback royalty
• International ISBN Agency, ISBN assignment

Common questions

Do I need IngramSpark if I publish with KDP?

Only if you want what KDP's own distribution does not reach well. KDP sells on Amazon and can make eligible paperbacks available to the book trade through its expanded distribution — slowly, at a lower royalty, with no trade terms. IngramSpark is the conventional and far stronger route to bookshops and libraries. A book selling only on Amazon is fully served by KDP.

Can I use both KDP and IngramSpark for the same book?

Yes, and most widely distributed books do — the same edition, the same owned ISBN, on both. The setting that matters: leave KDP expanded distribution off for that ISBN, because KDP requires an expanded-distribution ISBN not to be submitted for distribution elsewhere, and Ingram instructs publishers using both services to keep it off. KDP for Amazon sales, Ingram for the trade; Amazon decides how it sources its own copies.

Which pays more per copy?

On Amazon, KDP, usually: its print royalty — 50 or 60 per cent of the list price minus printing cost, depending on price and marketplace — beats the wholesale terms of an Ingram-sourced copy. On a bookshop order there is no contest: KDP has no trade channel to sell through, and the wholesale discount is the price of admission.

What is the difference between returns and no returns?

IngramSpark lets you choose whether a title is returnable, and many booksellers are reluctant to stock inventory they cannot return. When a copy comes back you pay its current wholesale cost — with the deliver option, return shipping and handling on top; the destroy option skips the shipping but destroys the copy. KDP gives you no returnability controls at all.