If you’re wondering how to get your nonfiction book printed and bound in the most cost-effective way, this article is for you. But first, here’s some background:

Prior to the development of high-speed, print-on-demand digital presses, the only way to produce print runs cost-effectively was to use the more traditional, analog offset presses. But the only way to get a low cost per unit was to commit to costly high-volume print runs.

With the popularity of the nascent self-publishing industry in the early to mid-90s, equipment manufacturers realized that a new solution was needed. Today, digital technology has improved to the point of being able to produce high-quality images that are cost effective at low volumes and nearly indistinguishable from the quality standards of offset printing.

Introducing IngramSpark

The first company out of the block to adopt high-speed technology on a massive scale was Ingram, with Amazon coming second. Being the first mover in the field, Ingram has managed to retain the most flexible, option-rich and cost-effective advantage over all other competitors.

Through its subsidiary, IngramSpark, Ingram offers independent authors the most flexibility for printing and binding as well as generous volume discounts. They operate print-on-demand facilities in several countries around the world, offering authors the ability to have books printed, bound and shipped directly to local markets.

Let’s break down their printing options in detail so that you can cost out your book.

(Note to readers: even though I advise authors to print their books using IngramSpark’s printing services, I receive no compensation, finder fees or affiliate commissions of any kind for my recommendation).

Book Binding

IngramSpark offers two types of binding that are ideal for nonfiction authors: perfect-binding for paperback books and case-binding for hardcovers.

Perfect Bound Binding Option

If you’re printing a paperback edition of your book, then you need to pick the Perfect Bound choice. This type of binding consists of gluing all book pages together at the spine and then gluing on top a full-color soft card-stock printed book cover that wraps around the book.

Case Laminate Binding Option

If you’re printing a hardcover edition, then you need to choose Case Laminate binding. Here the pages are also glued together at the spine but instead of wrapping around a soft card stock cover, your book will be wrapped in a hard cardboard cover.

Book Cover Options

Ingram offers two types of book cover options:

Paperback Book Cover

This is a full color book cover printed on card stock that’s glued to the perfect-bound body of your book. This cover is trimmed with a guillotine to fit exactly within the edges of your book block.

Hardcover

Hardcovers offer two types of cover options: full-color laminated printed book cover glued to the hard cardboard, or a dust jacket (a thin card-stock cover loosely wrapped around the book with flaps to hold it in place.)

Book Textures

IngramSpark offers three types of textures for your book cover: matte, gloss and digital cloth.

Matte

The matte option results in a full-color book cover that feels smooth to the touch but has no glare.

Gloss

This option produces a book cover that provides a smooth, durable high gloss finish.

Digital Cloth

This is an option for hardcover books only – it consists of a synthetic “faux cloth” material that is glued directly onto the hard boards. This option is ideal for books with a dust jacket.

Trim Sizes

IngramSpark offers a large number of trim sizes, covering most applications. Here are the available choices (the most popular ones are shown in bold)

Paperback Trim Sizes

4 x 6” (154 x 102mm)

4 x 7” (178 x 102mm)

4.25 x 7” (178 x 108mm)

4.37 x 7” (178 x 111mm)

4.72 x 7.48” (190 x 120mm)

5 x 7” (178 x 127mm)

5 x 8” (203 x 127mm)

5.06 x 7.81” (198 x 129mm)

5.25 x 8” (203 x 133mm)

5.5 x 8.25” (210 x 140mm)

5.5 x 8.5” (216 x 140mm)

5.83 x 8.27” (210 x 148 mm)

6 x 9” (229 x 152mm)

6.14 x 9.21” (234 x 156mm)

6.5 x 6.5” (165 x 165 mm)

6.625 x 10.25” (260 x 168mm)

6.69 x 9.61” (244 x 170 mm)

7 x 10” (254 x 178 mm)

7.44 x 9.69” (246 x 189mm)

7.5 x 9.25” (235 x 191mm)

8 x 8” (203 x 203mm)

8 x 10” (254 x 203mm)

8 x 10.88” (276 x 203mm)

8.25 x 10.75” (273 x 210mm)

8.25 x 11” (279 x 210mm)

8.268 x 11.693” (297 x 210mm)

8.5 x 8.5” (216 x 216mm)

8.5 x 9” (229 x 216mm)

8.5 x 11” (280 x 216m)

Hardcover Trim Sizes

5 x 8″ (203 x 127 mm) Case Laminate/Digital Cloth/Dust Jacket

5.5 x 8.5″ (216 x 140mm) Case Laminate/Digital Cloth/Dust Jacket

5.83 x 8.27″ (210 x 148 mm) Case Laminate Only

6 x 9″ (229 x 152mm) Case Laminate/Digital Cloth/Dust Jacket

6.14 x 9.21″ (234 x 156mm) Case Laminate/Digital Cloth/Dust Jacket

6.69 x 9.61″ (244 x 170 mm) Case Laminate Only

7 x 10″ (254 x 178 mm) Case Laminate Only

7.5 x 9.25″ (235 x 191) Case Laminate Only

8 x 8″ (203 x 203) Case Laminate Only

8 x 10″ (254 x 203mm) Case Laminate Only

8 x 10.88″ (276 x 203) Case Laminate Only

8.25 x 10.75″ (273 x 210) Case Laminate Only

8.5 x 8.5″ (216 x 216) Case Laminate Only

8.5 x 11″ (280 X 216mm) Case Laminate Only

Paper Options

IngramSpark offers three types of paper options, depending on your application:

Creme Paper

Creme paper is an off-white paper stock that’s ideal for hardcover memoirs, historical nonfiction and for other books that have all text with no images. This paper tint affords books with a more traditional “old-fashioned” look and feel.

For this application, IngramSpark uses 50 lb paper stock and they only allow black and white printing.

White Paper

There are two types of white paper available:

• 50 lb weight, ideal for black and white and standard color printing
• 70 lb weight, which can only be used for standard color or premium color printing (the latter offers more vivid color for a richer look, ideal for photographic or art books)

Sample Book Prices

Book printing costs vary according to your trim size and the number of pages in your book.

Given the many available options, the best way to get an accurate printing quote is to use IngramSpark’s calculator, but here are some typical choices for reference:

• A 200-page black & white paperback-bound book with a 5 x 8 inch trim size on 50 lb paper and a gloss cover will cost $3.66 per copy
• A 250-page black & white paperback-bound book with a 5.5 x 8.5 inch trim size on 50 lb creme paper and a matte cover will cost $4.29 per copy
• A 200-page black & white digital cloth hardcover-bound book with a 6 x 9 inch trim size on 50 lb white paper and a glossy dust jacket will cost $8.31 per copy
• A 250-page black & white case laminate hardcover with a 6 x 9 inch trim size on 50 lb white paper and a glossy cover will cost $8.94 per copy
• A 120-page premium color case laminate hardcover with an 8 x 8 inch trim size on 70 lb white paper and a glossy cover will cost $16.87 per copy

Volume Discounts

There are many discount levels depending on your total book order. As an example, if you order 1,000 copies you’ll get an additional 40% discount off the unit cost.

Next Steps

Although IngramSpark offers most cost effective and flexible printing options for self-publishing nonfiction authors, in order to produce a quality product they require that you follow a rather strict set of file submission guidelines.

For best results, this should ideally be handled by your book and cover designer to eliminate the frustrating troubleshooting of highly technical submission errors.

If you enjoyed this post and would like to learn more about how to excel in the writing craft be sure to check out my free nonfiction writing guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.

Prior to the development of high-speed, print-on-demand digital presses, the only way to produce print runs cost-effectively was using the more traditional offset presses.

Offset printing had been perfected over the decades to squeeze out as much unit cost as possible from book production by increasing economies of scale (mainly through achieving very high operating speeds).

But the only way to get low costs per unit was to commit to a high volume of books per print run. Now, when it came to authors with an existing following and sales history from previous books, print runs were quite easy to predict.

But when it came to new authors, this printing technology resulted in a huge waste of book stock as publishers were required to print too many copies without having clear sales forecasts.

The Print-on-Demand Revolution

With the popularity of the nascent self-publishing industry in the early to mid-90s, as well as the increased profile of smaller indie presses, equipment manufacturers realized that a new solution was needed.

Even though digital printing technology was well-developed at the time, it was mainly targeted at the photocopy business, which was too high-cost/low-speed for volume printing applications.

However, through research and development, manufacturers were able to create higher and higher speed digital presses with progressively better and better quality. By the end of the 90s, the first large-scale, high-speed, digital printing presses began to appear.

The book distributor Ingram was one of the first companies to install large banks of high-speed digital presses to produce short print runs cost-effectively, followed a few years later by Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), a subsidiary of Amazon. Many traditional printers also invested in digital presses.

Today, digital technology has improved to the point of being able to produce high-quality images that are cost effective at low volumes and nearly indistinguishable from the quality standards of offset printing.

Introducing the Two Main Players

There are currently two large players in the print-on-demand arena who’ve developed not only global print-on-demand networks with facilities around the world, but also the software platforms necessary to distribute titles globally at a very low-cost for authors.

The first player is Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP), which is the portal for self-publishers and small indie presses to have their books appear on Amazon.

KDP has on-demand printing facilities in North America, Europe and Japan, so when a reader in any of those markets purchases your book on Amazon, a copy is printed in near-real time and then shipped domestically to the end user at the lowest possible cost.

The convergence of technologies of the internet, eCommerce and distributed print-on-demand facilities managed to remove the biggest barrier to global book sales – the high cost of shipping pre-printed book stock around the world.

The second player is IngramSpark, a subsidiary of  book-distributor giant Ingram. What KDP does for online book distribution, IngramSpark does for brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries.

IngramSpark also operates print-on-demand facilities in multiple countries through Ingram’s Lightning Source subsidiary. Specifically, they operate high-speed, on-demand digital presses in the U.S., the U.K., France and Australia, offering similar coverage as Amazon’s KDP.

As a self-published, nonfiction author your best approach is to self-publish on both platforms simultaneously in order to the get best of both online and offline worlds.

Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

Let’s look at the approximate costs of self-publishing on the KDP platform.

KDP has no initial publishing fees, although I highly recommend that you purchase your own ISBN, or book identification number. If you use the free ISBN supplied by KDP, you’ll be blocked from co-publishing your paperback with IngramSpark, which will lock you out of physical bookstores (which seldom order books from KDP due to their low wholesale discount).

Book Printing Cost

KDP won’t charge you in advance for the cost of the books sold through Amazon. When a sale is closed, they’ll simply deduct their printing cost from the amount collected and forward you the remainder minus a distribution fee (more on this later).

The actual printing cost will depend of the type of paper you choose, your book’s trim size and the number of pages.

Bookstore Discount

KDP only offers a flat 25% discount to brick-and-mortar bookstores, whereas the expected industry discount is 40%. As a result, bookstores don’t typically order books from KDP because most would be doing so at a loss.

Royalties

KDP will take pay you 60% of your book’s list price minus the printing cost as a royalty and keep the rest as their commission for distributing your book through Amazon.

Volume Discounts for Author Orders

Although KDP allows authors to purchase books at cost, they don’t offer volume discounts. So, if you purchase a large order to fulfill back-of-the-room sales for a number of speaking events, you’ll get no break on your order.

(Note: this is the downside of KDP, however, there’s a workaround that I’ll cover later.)

Expanded Distribution

This is a feature where you can enable KDP to distribute your title to the book trade outside of Amazon. If you do, your royalty decreases from 60% of your list price to 40% minus the printing cost.

Out of the remaining 60% that KDP retains, they extend a 25% discount to bookstores and keep the remaining 35% as their own distribution fee.

Now remember that bookstores will not order from KDP at this low discount rate, so make sure that this feature is disabled for your title to prevent KDP from selling to physical bookstores.

IngramSpark

Unlike KDP, IngramSpark does have a small cost when you upload print files. Specifically, they’ll charge you $49 per book format. But they do have a significant upside: they can print both paperback and hardcover formats (KDP only supports paperbacks), which gives you the ability to offer your title at two different price points.

(Note: you’ll to supply a separate ISBN for each book format.)

Book Printing Cost

IngramSpark deducts the printing cost from sales after receiving payment from customers. This amount will depend on the type of paper you choose, your book’s trim size, the number of pages and the book’s format (paperback or hardcover).

Bookstore Discount

Ingram offers brick-and-mortar bookstores the standard industry wholesale discount of 40%, which makes them their preferred choice for book distribution.

Now, over the years, they’ve come up with a flexible discounting scheme that allows you to set a lower bookstore discount and keep a higher royalty, mainly to offer a competitive counterpart to KDP’s approach. However, any discounting below 40% will result in bookstores not ordering your title, so make sure you always set your title’s discount at the expected 40%.

Royalties

IngramSpark offers the following royalty scheme:

• You can choose a bookstore discount of between 30% and 55%.
• Out of the above range, IngramSpark keeps 15% as their distribution fee so bookstores will get an actual discount of between 15% and 40% (as stated before, a bookstore discount lower than 40% will result in no book sales due to a lack of margin).
• You get paid the remainder, between 70% and 45% as your royalty minus the printing cost. Again, for all practical purposes, the only figure that’s meaningful is a royalty of 45% of your list price minus the printing cost.

Volume Discounts for Author Orders

This is the area where IngramSpark really shines: the generous volume discounts they offer to authors. Not only will you be able to buy books at cost, but they also offer volume discounts that make ordering through KDP unnecessary.

Here’s an example:

Say that you’re printing a 200-page black and white paperback. Your IngramSpark printing cost will be approximately $3.69 for a single copy, but if you order 1,000 copies you’ll get an additional 40% discount off the unit cost.

So, let’s assume that you pay the same unit cost of $3.69 per copy both with IngramSpark and KDP (their pricing structures are quite competitive). Instead of paying $3,690 at KDP ($3.69 x 1,000) you’ll only pay $2,214 at IngramSpark ($3.69 x 1,000 x 60%).

That’s a savings of $1,476!

Online Bookstore Distribution

Although IngramSpark will also distribute your title to online bookstores including Amazon, you still also need to publish directly to Amazon through KDP.

First of all, you’ll get a higher royalty for Amazon sales if you go through KDP (60% minus printing cost vs. 45%), but also, Amazon is known for prioritizing KDP-distributed books over other competitors.

Although they’ve never publicly admitted to this practice, it’s been observed over the years that KDP books always show up on Amazon with a status of “Available Immediately” whereas IngramSpark-distributed books often appear with a status of “Not in Stock,” even though they print books on demand as well.

In Conclusion

As a self-publisher of nonfiction, you always want to gain the maximum possible exposure for your book.

Both IngramSpark and KDP have created powerful distribution platforms to help you achieve this goal, but they have different strengths and weaknesses.

Fortunately, these platforms happen to be complementary and by self-publishing your book on both you’ll get the best of both worlds – global reach through online bookstores and brick-and-mortar bookstores for a very low cost of distribution.

If you enjoyed this article and are in the process of publishing a nonfiction book be sure to check out my free nonfiction success guide, drawn from years of experience editing books for bestselling authors (including a New York Times bestseller) and ghostwriting for CEOs and politicians. Simply click here to get instant access.

Ben

Leave me a comment below if you have any questions or a specific need that I can help you address – I operate an author services firm that specializes in helping entrepreneurs, professionals and business owners who want to publish books as a calling card for prospects, to establish their status as an expert or to just to generate additional leads for their businesses.

 

Here are some related posts I highly recommend:

How to Write a Compelling Book in 12 Steps: A Must-Read Guide for Nonfiction Authors

How to Grow Your Business Writing a Nonfiction Book

How Long Does it Take to Write a Book to Help Grow Your Business?

5 Book Cover Maker Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Nonfiction Cover

20 Powerful Ideas to Promote Your Nonfiction Book

Write Your Own Book and Become an Expert: 11 Reasons Why You Should

 

Bennett R. Coles is an award-winning author of six books published through Harper Collins (New York) and Titan Publishing Group (London). He is also the publisher at Promontory Press, editor for multiple bestselling authors (including a NY Times bestseller), ghostwriter for CEOs and politicians and the founder of Cascadia Author Services, a boutique full-service firm that specializes in premium author services specifically designed for busy professionals. Our end-to-end services include writer coaching, ghostwriting, editing, proofing, cover design, book layout, eBook production, marketing, printing and distribution.