Self-Publishing in Australia // Step Two: Print-on-Demand

Print-on-Demand is the only financially feasible way that we can publish physical copies of our books. There are many different platforms available now, some you might have heard of, others you might not. I'm going to list them for you in order of affordability/expense, but you can be the judge of which platform you would use. They are all available to us here in Australia, but some have different conditions and expenses to keep in mind.

Note: This is going to be a long blog entry...so get ready for lots of info, as well as my own tips and personal opinions.

1. Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP)

KDP is the most commonly used platform that currently exists, as it is an off-shoot of Amazon, the biggest online retailer for both physical and eBooks. With KDP, you have the ability to publish all three book formats (eBook, paperback & hardback) completely and totally free of charge. The only expense that you pay if for proof and author copies (assuming you already have your manuscript formatted and your book cover designed).

For the purpose of proof copies, it is much cheaper to upload your draft to KDP and order a proof copy, as you do not need to pay an uploading fee for it like you would IngramSpark. However, you can only plan pre-orders for your eBook only, they don't currently offer this feature for their paperback and hardback formats.

My Tip: If you plan to also use IngramSpark to distribute your book, do all of your proofing through KDP (in terms of formatting, cover and editing) and once you are completely happy with the books layout and design, upload it to IS so that you only have to pay 1 upload fee (more on that soon). I

My Opinion: Whilst KDP is the most affordable in terms of physical prints and highest quality in regards to it's price, I personally believe that IngramSpark has a slightly higher quality than KDP in terms of cover. The colours and contrasts were a lot clearer and crisper, and the picture resolution was a lot sharper as well. You also have a lot of customisation when it concerns the hardback, as you can upload/design anything for the case laminate, where as KDP you only have the option for the text on the spine. However when it comes to the interiors, I felt that the KDP paper was thicker/denser. and therefore less transparent (?). I really love KDP because it is a very simple and straight-forward platform to use, from beginners to experienced publishers.

2. IngramSpark

IngramSpark is the off-shoot of Lighting Source, a big book printing company with a printing warehouse and office located in Australia, so any copies bought from them within Australia (whether they be author copies or reader copies) will be printed and shipped from here. They have global distribution through Amazon, Barnes & Noble (an American online & brick and mortar book store), Book Depository, Booktopia, independent bookstores, etc. They have a feature that allows you to not only set up pre-orders for your ebooks, but also for your paperbacks & hardbacks, unlike KDP.

Unlike with KDP, Ingram is not as straight forward to use. It is a lot more particular with it's process, but this is because their standards are held very high. And although they charge an uploading fee per title (keep in mind there is also a $25 Alterations fee for if you make any changes after the initial upload), this is more so considered an investment in your book - you are paying to upload your manuscript, and you are getting a high quality product with a bit more customisation available (you can decide on the kind of hardback you want to print, whether you do a case laminate, a dust jacket without the hardcover being printed or dust jacket with the hardcover being printed). You do, however, have to list a publishing imprint, which you do not have to do on KDP. You can simply list your name if you would like, but it depends on how professional you want your book to look.

There is a big stigma around IngramSpark in the Indie Author community, but personally I have not had a single issue with them. After doing a lot of research into the company, being patient and making sure that both my formatter and my cover designer knew how to format my files for both Ingram and KDP (as each of these platforms requires different format resolutions), I didn't have any issues with setting up my title. Some people think it's unacceptable for them to charge an uploading fee, but I believe that's debatable. Traditional publishers pay advances to their authors when they invest in their story, so it's no different to us to invest in our publisher - especially if you are wanting a high quality product. But you can make that decision yourself.

My Tip: If you do not have any issues with paying for the uploading fee ($49.99USD = $65.48AUD), I would recommend uploading your book to both IngramSpark and KDP. By selecting 'Expanded Distribution' on your IngramSpark title opposed to your KDP title will give you a high probability of your book being bought by other suppliers and stores, as Amazon is considered the biggest competition. When listing your title on Ingram & KDP, use the same ISBN for both title so that it links to the same book on Amazon, otherwise you can end up with two separate listings.

I would also make sure that you work through all the kinks that you can in regards to the interior file as well as the cover using your KDP title, as Ingram does charge a re-uploading fee every time you make a change to any files you have previously uploaded, whereas KDP does not. It's a good idea to subscribe to their newsletter, as they regularly send through discount codes on their uploading fees!

My Opinion: I love Ingram. I love that I have the opportunity to customise my hardcover cases under the jacket, and I love the print quality of their books. I feel Ingram is that little bit more of a professional platform, but that being said, I have not had to deal with IngramSpark's office to try and work through any problems with my titles (at the time of this blog post, I have not had any issues with my titles that have required assistance). A lot of authors complain about their customer service (or lack-there-of), but I think if you have your files sorted before you upload to Ingram, you are less likely to run into any issues with the print (that's not to say that you won't! There is always a chance that things can misalign and go wrong).

But keeping in mind your budget, you can always look at publishing with Ingram later and just stick with KDP.

3. Barnes & Noble Press

Barnes & Noble Press, as mentioned earlier, is an American book retailer that has opened up it's own self-publishing platform. However, unlike with Ingram and KDP, B&NP only distributes your book amongst their stores, not on a global scale to thousands of other suppliers like the other two platforms. You can publish all 3 formats on this platform, and like KDP the hardback can only be printed with a case laminate (no dust jacket) or with the spine printing underneath the dust jacket.

This platform is a little harder for us to use. Not impossible, but definitely not as easy. We can upload the title to B&NP, but we can't order author copies. At all. Not that it costs a lot, or that it's takes a long time to arrive to us, but that they (at this point in time) do not allow authors outside of America to order author/proof copies before the book in published (which I highly recommend that you do, so that you can ensure that before anyone buys your book, it looks exactly like it is supposed to - which you can't guarantee from an image on your screen).

Another issue with B&NP is that, unlike with KDP and Ingram how you need to use the same ISBN to link your books to the same listing, you need to have a separate ISBN to those titles (if you are using multiple platforms to publish). Although this isn't inherently an issue with this, but it does start to eat away at your ISBN stash (there is more to come on those in another article) as you could use up to 3 ISBN's for the one book (1 x paperback copy for Ingram/KDP + 1 x paperback copy for B&NP + 1 x hardback copy for Ingram OR Kindle Direct Publishing OR Barnes & Noble Press). Because paperbacks are fairly straight forward and standard across the range, hardcovers are not.

My Tip: It is a little bit more difficult for us to see how the printing will turn out with B&NP, so I would again work out all of the kinks through KDP first. If you have a friend that lives in the US, you could speak to them about having the proof copy sent to them, and then they send it through to you? It's a bit of a round about way to get a proof copy to you, but it could work.

My Opinion: Skip this platform all together. It's too much work to get a proof/author copy before you hit the publish button, you book is limited to B&N's website only, and your book features on their retail site through Expanded Distribution regardless of if you publish using their platform or not (whether you list it for E.D. on either Ingram or KDP).

4. Lulu

Lulu is probably one of the first publishing platforms I learned about years ago, but it is by far the least spoken about platform. You have a lot of options for binding and printing with this platform (e.g. spiral bound, comic/magazine print, etc), which makes it the most versatile publishing platform that currently exists. You have a few more colour options (Navy, Black, Grey, Red, Tan & Green) in terms of the linen hard cover format, but it is limited to the spine printing only.

They also have a special features that the other platforms don't have, where you can connect your titles from them to your existing Shopify account, and sell your books directly to your customers without having to hold stock (this just means that you wouldn't have signed copies, which is usually what authors will list on their website as a point of difference compared to purchasing the book on Amazon or another retailer).

This platform is typically more expensive in regards to printing proof copies, and the printing factory is located in the US, so everything is listed un USD.

My Tip: I haven't personally tried to use Lulu before, so I don't have any tips for using this platform.

My Opinion: There has been some controversy surrounding the quality of Lulu in some articles I've read and reviews I've watched. I wouldn't rule this platform out entirely, I would just establish and understand the type of book you are wanting to publish and if this platform would work better for you in comparison to the other ones I've mentioned. If you have a particular format of book that you feel Lulu will produce better, I would suggest giving them a go, but don't put all of your eggs in this basket without testing the waters first.

That's all the information I have for Print-on-Demand platforms. Again, the information listed is relevant to the time in which I've written this blog post. More publishing platforms will pop up, some will fall, as the world is ever changing. All in all, I suggest you still do the research on the platforms that you are most interested in using and see if it will be the right fit for you. The platforms I love won't necessarily be platforms that you'll love.

I hope this has been helpful. If you have any questions regarding any of the information I've mentioned, or just want some more insights from my personal experiences, please feel free to send me an email (you can fill out the form on my contacts page!).

Mak x