Some Notes on IngramSpark

I published two books earlier this year through IngramSpark, a print-on-demand service associated with the book distributor Ingram, and I’m now getting ready to publish a third one. There are plenty of resources out there about POD generally and IngramSpark specifically, but I haven’t found anything that goes into detail on topics that are important to cartoonists, like print quality and paper stock. So I thought I’d write something myself.

The basic appeal of IS over other POD options is access to Ingram’s distribution network. Your book will be available from big online retailers like bookshop.org and stores can order it using their Ingram account – most will have one. At worst, you can order a set of books yourself and send them directly to a retailer so you’re still avoiding the annoyance of packing/shipping yourself.

Now, on to the details:

Price

• It costs $50 to print a book via IS, i.e. just to upload your files. Plus you’re required to purchase an ISBN if you want the book to be distributed, which is an additional $125 for a single ISBN or $295 for 10 ISBNs. So $80 is a more realistic cost per book. Still more affordable than the cost of even a small print run.
• You will get a digital proof of your book, but there is no straightforward way to get a physical proof. You have to pay the $50 upload fee up front, order a copy of your book, and then an additional $25 if you choose to upload a revised file. The least bad option as far as I’ve found is printing a dummy version of the book yourself, but of course that’s only an approximation of how the IS version might print. So you’re looking at some combination of additional cost and additional risk, depending on how you choose to handle this.
• You can set both your retail price and your wholesale discount however you choose. It’s easy to order copies at cost and ship them to yourself.

Printing

• First, the printing quality is generally good. The books are well put together and the cover stock feels nice. It’s about as good as any digital printing option I’ve used in the past.
• IS prints in CMYK from a PDF file that you upload. They have fairly specific instructions on bleeds, PDF formatting, etc. that might be new to you depending on how you’ve printed your work in the past. I’ve used this as an opportunity to teach myself Scribus, an open-source alternative to InDesign, and I’m glad that I did because managing the bleeds etc. just in Photoshop would be a nightmare.
• There are several options for trim size but beyond that your printing choices are limited. There are just a few paper types, and for b&w books you can only use 50lb paper. That really isn’t thick enough for comics, and your images will bleed through particularly if you have areas of heavy black. The 70lb paper available for color is better.  You can see the full list of printing options, and compare costs, here.
• For certain trim sizes, you can’t print on the inside front/back covers.
• You can print full bleed, no issues there.
• The upload tool on the IS website is terrible. On anything other than the fastest Internet connection, you won’t be able to upload your files. I’ve just emailed Dropbox links to their customer service email and that seems to be fine.
• They ask for 300dpi images, but I’ve provided 600dpi when printing projects that include some black and white line art. I’m not sure if this makes a difference, since I don’t have anything printed from 300dpi files to compare, but the line art generally looks good in print. Probably a bit less crisp than offset. 

Concluding Thoughts

• I’ve printed three book length works this year, which is maybe a little ridiculous but certainly would have been impossible, both financially and in terms of the storage space I have, if I wasn’t using POD. So it’s a good fit for me right now despite the drawbacks.
• I also have to thank Frank Santoro and Todd Webb, who made me aware of this option and who both provided some helpful suggestions as I was beginning to explore POD.
• I don’t have personal experience with other POD options so I can’t say much there. I did look into Lulu, and IS was cheaper for the particular page counts and formats I was considering at the time. Though looking back now, Lulu does have a wider range of paper stock options including thicker paper for b&w books.
• Finally, more broadly, I like the idea of producing my work in a way that ensures no more copies are printed than there are readers for the work. POD is at least marginally more sustainable than traditional printing methods from that perspective. I’ve even had moments where I’ve pondered starting a small publisher using IS, trying to create a home for a few of the many cartoonists whose work deserves to be printed in big, beautiful editions even if it might not sell that well. Maybe those thoughts will lead me somewhere, though I’d want to think carefully about how to approach a project like that.