First, a history lesson. Kinda. Trust me, it will pay off.
Ingram, the publishing juggernaut that it is, provided distribution services for major and minor publishing houses. They have a network of physical stores and their online counterparts, that a dedicated team pitches and sells books to. As publishers have a new slate of books coming out, they work with dedicated sales reps at Ingram to pitch those books to retailers. Ingram historically has been created to help sell books. Publisher orders a mass shipment of books and then it is warehoused around the country, or world, at Ingram warehouses and distributed to stores in that region.

But let’s say a book that was expected to do meh, suddenly takes off. Flying off the shelves. Well, it can take a while to have a whole new offset run of books so Ingram developed Lightning Source to print books on demand. This name should feel very familiar to you. If a publisher knew a shipment of more books was delayed by a week, Ingram could create and stock these interim books. It would be at a higher cost per book so less margin, but it is better than having no books on the shelves at all.

Once this is set up, Ingram thinks. Wait. We have distribution. We can print on demand. Why not open up this service to self-publishers?

So they did. Through IngramSpark. But you’ll notice all your invoices come from Lightning Source when you order author copies or get the dreaded returns.

How does all of this relate to Wide Distribution with LuLu or Draft2Digital?
LuLu and Draft2Digital offer their distribution through the same exact network, and sometimes, also use Lightning Source

This is why you will get the biggest headache and run around of your life if you decide to have your paperback on IngramSpark AND Draft2Digital or your paperback and hardcover on IngramSpark AND LuLu.

Because all the data is going to one network… Ingram’s network. So it shows as a duplicate and the system says “Nope.” If you are already on one platform and unhappy with it you need to pull your books and upload them elsewhere. Now you CAN do a transfer form but it can get messy. I know one author who elected to do the direct sales only through IngramSpark but then had issues uploading the book to Draft2Digital. Cue customer service run around. If you have one platform that you love but the other has one cool feature, I’d say it’s not worth just one cool feature. Find the platform that meets most of your needs and stick with that one.

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