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CreateSpace vs. IngramSpark vs. Lightning Source

One of the biggest decisions new self-publishers have to make about print books is whether, how, and where to print their books. While offset printing is less expensive, the publisher then becomes responsible for storing books and fulfilling orders. Printing in bulk (most offset print jobs don’t become cost-effective until about 500 copies are printed) usually works best if the publisher or author does a lot of in-person selling. Most self-publishers are better off using a print-on-demand (POD) digital printer.

Most POD printers will provide you with 25 or more copies. Certain POD printers will print one copy at a time as books are sold.

There are three POD printers I recommend to both print the book and handle book sales fulfillment: CreateSpace, IngramSpark, Lightning Source.

CreateSpace, www.createspace.com
Pros: No setup costs. No costs to upload revised files. No annual catalog fee. Amazon availability will be “In Stock.”
Cons: Independent bookstores may refuse to order from them. E-book distribution is a separate service. Returns aren’t permitted.

IngramSpark, www.ingramspark.com
Pros: Automatic entry to Ingram catalog; CoreSource distribution available for e-books. Publisher may opt to accept returns.
Cons: Setup fee of $49 per book. Annual catalog fee of $12 per book. Fee of $25 to upload revised files. Amazon availability may be “Usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks.”

Lightning Source, www.lightningsource.com
Pros: Automatic entry to Ingram catalog; CoreSource distribution available for e-books. Ability to set discount as low as 20%. Publisher may opt to accept returns.
Cons: Setup fee of $75 per book. Annual catalog fee of $12 per book. Fee of $40 to upload revised files. Amazon availability may be “Usually ships within 2 to 3 weeks.”

Note: Ingram is the major book wholesaler. CoreSource e-book distribution makes e-books available to more than 150 online bookstores.

Ingram, not Ingrams

In recent months, people have begun using Ingrams (note the s) when they mean Ingram.

Ingram Content Group is the parent company of the book wholesaler Ingram Book Group and the on-demand printers Lightning Source and IngramSpark. (Please note the correct spelling of IngramSpark: no space and no terminal s.) References to Ingram may refer to the wholesaler or to the parent company.

So what? What difference does it make if someone adds an extra s? When someone uses the wrong name, they look either careless or ignorant, and they create doubt about their expertise. What other details did they get wrong? Did they leave out any important facts?

Check the correct spelling for yourself:
Ingram Content Group
Lightning Source
IngramSpark

E-book cover size

There are two covers for ebooks, the embedded cover and the marketing cover. The different vendors (Amazon, etc.) give the requirements for marketing covers on their websites.

For embedded covers, consider the screen resolution in pixels, using the dimensions of your target devices.

You may see DPI (dots per inch) mentioned in reference to cover specifications, but DPI is a printing term that doesn’t apply to screens. DPI is irrelevant for web graphics and ebooks. All you care about is pixels. You may also see PPI (pixels per inch). PPI measures how closely the pixels are packed on a particular device. PPI isn’t really relevant because whether the PPI is 264 (iPad Air) or 323 (Kindle Fire HDX) won’t affect the pixel dimensions of your cover.

These are the kinds of numbers you’re interested in for creating your cover:

  • iPad Air 2048×1536 pixels (two-page spread, usually, with only half available for the cover)
  • Kindle Fire HDX 1920×1200 pixels (two-page spread, usually, with only half available for the cover)
  • Kindle Paperwhite 768×1024 pixels
  • Nook GlowLight 758×1024 pixels
  • Kobo Aura 758×1024 pixels

Covers are a moving target as devices change. Your ebook cover should be big enough in height and width (measured in pixels) that it doesn’t look (a) like a postage stamp at full size on the screen or (b) blurry or jagged if sized to fit the screen. You have to make a judgement call here.

Apple requires images to be less than 2 million pixels (height × width). To download their e-book guidelines, you’ll need to set up an account with Apple.

Regarding file size, the freely available Amazon Kindle Publishing Guidelines say:

The limitation on the image size depends upon the book’s format:

  • Reflowable books (fiction and non-fiction): 127 KB maximum
  • Fixed-layout books (other than comics): 256 KB maximum
  • Comic books: 800 KB maximum

KindleGen performs the necessary conversions automatically from the supported input formats, so you should provide images with the maximum resolution available and let KindleGen do the rest.

While the Kindle cover will be compressed automatically (and it will be; I’ve unpacked a MOBI to check the file size), it seems more logical to me to build one cover file for embedding that’s below 127KB for all vendors. It’s a courtesy to readers, who only have so much room on their devices.

By the way, the Kindle guidelines also say, “Use a resolution of 300 dpi or 300 ppi for all images.” They’re wrong.

To test for your own satisfaction the complete silliness of specifying DPI or PPI for an e-book cover, open any graphic in your image-editing software.

The original dimensions

The original image size settings.

Change the resolution from 300dpi to 72dpi. If you have resampling turned off, the pixel dimensions don’t change but the document size changes. (Document size is the printing size.)

Resampling off

Resampling off; document size changes but pixel dimensions remain the same.

If you have resampling turned on and change the resolution from 300dpi to 72dpi, the document size remains the same but the pixel dimensions change; more pixels are needed at a larger document size, fewer at a smaller size.

Resampling on

Resampling on; document size remains the same but the number of pixels changes.