The hot mess of choosing a publishing platform
Welcome back lovelies!
This weeks post is Ingramspark Vs. Amazon KDP.
Everyone has their own preference. Both sites offer free ISBNs but at a cost…Let me tell you a little story.
Eight years ago, a newly mom and insecure writer, I had dreams of people reading my books. I wanted to entertain people to the point where they were obsessed with my writing and stalked me on IG.
When I got feedback from people that my writing was good (I’m a Leo, I feed off of praise), I decided to google self-pub. The search brought up a couple of vanity presses, but there was one platform that kept coming up and it was Amazon KDP.
Because I was lazy and the reviews were great among authors who wanted to get their stories out but didn’t have the funding, I decided that ten minutes of research was enough for me to make my decision. For the next couple of years I published THE LAWYER & THE THIEF and THE LAWYER & THE STALKER using Amazon KDP.
And they all lived happily ever after.
THE END.
Sike!
When I published my first two books, I wasn’t really satisfied. why? Because KDP was confusing AF. If I needed to change something in the interior, I had to go to the original document, edit and then re-upload. Plus, making a cover using their templates was also difficult because they don’t really offer high quality images to choose from. I was overwhelmed with the whole process.
They also didn’t offer pre-orders on ebooks, it was only offered on the paperback; I felt forced to publish both right away. It was just a mess. To be honest, it could be my misunderstanding or maybe I just didn’t see that option…but that alone irked me to the core. The kicker of it all? I don’t own the rights to my books. When they offer the free ISBN, you are making your writing an amazon exclusive. I cannot sell my first two books on any other site or platform outside of Amazon because I used their ISBN and that sucks major monkey balls.
I can take it down, do major edits and revisions if I want to re-publish it and keep the rights. But Imma just chalk this up to a lesson learned.
Between my two releases I attended BookCon (RIP) and one of the classes I attended was an intro to self-publishing hosted by…Ingramspark.
They made things make sense.
It was like a whole new world and I wondered, why the frig did I use Amazon?!!!
I’m not going to lie, Ingram made their whole sales pitch and the whole thing seemed too good to be true.
I had already started the process with Amazon to publish my second book and decided if I self-published my third book I would use Ingramspark.
And so…here we are.
In the past three months, I’ve purchased my ISBN and uploaded my files. Ingram offers the convenience to edit each chapter right on the site. If I needed to add a chapter, I could actually write it on the site and add it to the book.
They also offer templates to make your cover. Their cover building was easier for me to follow. (No matter which platform I used, I had trouble figuring out the measurement requirements, so get yourself help if you need it.)
They do provide customer support if you have any questions.
I haven’t had much trouble with Ingram…yet. I’m still in the process of publishing my new romance.
Pre-orders went up with no problems and I just ordered my ARC, just to make sure everything is up to par.
I know that this all seemed like one long commercial and Ad for ingram, but I assure you, I ain’t get no money from them for writing this, even though I wish they’d send a little something my way.
So, in the end, I think I’m going to stick with Ingram.
My fourth book (Third and final in the Ollie Apple series) will be on amazon so that the whole series can be an amazon exclusive and it’ll be wrapped in a nice little bow.
Okay, that’s all I have for now.
If you guys have specific questions leave them in the comments or message me on IG @j.l.polanco
Good luck!
Love Always,
J.L.