Expanded distro was an option under CreateSpace pricing, which specifically made your paperback available to Barnes & Noble, Ingram and Libraries & Academic institutions. It of course raises the price so that B&N and Ingram can take their cut, as well as Amazon, but it did not affect Amazon sales, you just got a much bigger royalty. I tried, got exactly one sale out of B&N, found B&N to be very difficult to market, and opted back out to lower my price for Christmas sales. The post CS KDP offers the same option, at the same delta in cost, but simply identified "available to our retail partners." I am going the Historical Novel Society conference in June and they require books to be sold their to be available through Ingram, so I reactivated my Expanded distro again. And I queried KDP to verify that Ingram was still included in their partnership. Unbelievably, I was told that as corporate policy, they cannot discoles who their partners are!!!! Needless to say, I fired off a scorching critique of their policy in response to their "please rate our response" email. Has anyone used KDP expanded distro, and can confirm the B&N and Ingram are still part of that network? In the meanwhile, HNS has a procedure and coupon for registering books with Ingram, which I am going to do now. Thanks to all, my first dissatisfaction with KDP!
Ingram aren't a kdp partner - why would they be when they have their own POD? (it depends on what you mean by via ingram - if you mean into the book catalogues who are ingram partners such as Gardiners then yes KDP can do that, but they don't offer the same flexibility on discounts and returns policy that is offered by IS) On the whole its best to use KDP print only for amazon (don't tick extended distro) and Ingram Spark for everything else print related. The reason its best to use KDP for amazon is if you use ingram for amazon you sometimes get issues with your books showing as out of stock. Ingram charge a set up fee but there are nearly always codes that make it free... currently GETPUBLISHED and SELFPUB both work One point of note is the paper thicknesses and bleeds as a tiny bit different between KDP and Ingram so you will need two versions of your print cover since the spine thickness won't be the same. Don't use ingram spark as an aggregator for ebooks however - in that area its best to go direct to amazon and kobo and use draft to digital or publish drive for everything else
Roger that. I am transitioning to Ingram for my print books as it is required if I wish to sell books at the upcoming Historical Writers conference next month, and got a free coupon. As this is a transition from KDP to Ingram, they will do the setup. Good point on the cover, I will check with my cover designer and have her on standby, and also verify with IS that they are going to take care of that. In discussions, apparently B&N and Amazon got a divorce after the KDP merger, and as you said, extended distro does nothing but get your book in the catalogue with no other benefits. So the reason KDP will not disclose who their "retail partners" are is that they apparently don't have any. I am hoiping this transition goes smoothly, as the print layout on E&D is superb, and I hope the Ingram transition matches it. Time is close! So thanks for the info, @big soft moose!
They do have partners but its more theoretical than practical - you can get into most of the major distro catalogues but the shops and libraries that use those catalogues won't order your books once they see you are with KDP As I say the only purpose I see for KDP print is selling via amazon. I think B&N have their own POD service but its only good for selling via B&N and I don't know anyone who uses it. Draft to digital were also supposed to be setting up a POD service but that hasn't happened yet
I've seen numerous claims that Createspace used to use Ingram to print PoD books for 'expanded distribution'. Amazon may still be doing that. Or those claims may all be nonsense.
i'm fairly certain those claims are rubbish - createspace printed books were not identical to ingram prints of the same book in terms of paper thickness, bleeds, trims etc
Are those books you bought from Createspace/Amazon, or from book stores that got them through 'expanded distribution'? All the books sold direct from Createspace or through Amazon supposedly used Createspace's printers. I've never seen one of my 'expanded distribution' books, so I don't know how they compare.
i got author copies from both createspace and ingram ( I use createspace, now kdp print on amazon and ingram for extended distro) they weren't identical
