LSI or Ingram Spark?

[Cindy]

I've been planning to use Lightning Source for the ebook and print versions of my memoir. But I just read about Ingram Spark. Instead of having to go through the submission process twice for these two formats, you do it once. Startup costs are less. And they offer the same POD and ebook services.

But. They make you offer the standard 55% discount to booksellers. They don't assign you an individual assistant to answer questions; you deal with their "team." And they don't offer conversion services to create your epub and mobi files.

I have no idea which to go with. Anyone have experience with Ingram Spark?

[Norm]

I went through Ingram Spark. Yesterday I was in the local book store to drop off some books on consignment and they looked it up. She said, and I paraphrase because I didn't write it down.

It's available from Ingram as an Print on Demand, but we don't buy anything from Ingram because of the difficulties in returns.

The other thing I noticed is that I have the book priced at 19.95 CAD but Ingram is saying 22.95. No wonder they don't buy.

Norm Hamilton, Writer, Copy-Editor, Proofreader
Author of From Thine Own Well , Sarah’s Embrace , The Digital Eye
Website
Email

[Cindy]

That's good info, thanks. I read an interview (by Joel Friedlander) of an Ingram Spark employee, and learned that authors get less in royalties through them than LSI.

[Kylie]

Strange there are differences for LSI and Ingram Spark because they are both owned by the Ingram Content Group. So it' all Ingram….

[Cindy]

There are differences because Ingram Spark is geared toward new authors/publishers who don't want to invest as much and do want a simpler process.

Lightning Source remains as is for publishers who want to make a longterm commitment and use LS as a valuable channel to that.