Ingram Content Group

It's with KDP Select currently, but he does want to hit bookstores, libraries, and eventually do some rights licensing, if that makes sense for him.

Is taking print copies off wide distribution with Amazon and going to IngramSpark and then potentially Kirkus Reviews the way to go? I

would definitely take off expanded distribution on KDP and log in to Ingram and set yourself up on Ingram.

I would definitely do that.

And a lot of my bookstore distribution goes through IngramSpark.

So would strongly recommend that you do that.

Most bookstores will not order from KDP Extended Distribution because they're seen as a direct competitor.

I had seen a drop in Waterstones stores orders and I don't know what had happened, but somehow my distributor had switched to KDP.

for no other reason, you should have a print option.

Now, I know you use Ingram for your distribution.

Does Ingram run the machines as well, the print-on-demand machines?

Yes, they run, they have a lot of their own, and they also do sometimes in certain parts of the world partner with others.

Yeah, so that's why it's so fast.

One of the advantages of using Ingram's apparatus is that the Ingram print on demand machines are inside of the Ingram fulfillment centers.

So Ingram, for those of y'all don't know, is kind of the big dog.

It's the biggest book distributor.

Like right now, uh, we're a book publisher.

Uh, we've published over 300 books for other clients, right? And, uh, right now we work with Ingram, uh, which is Lightning Source, and those are print-on-demand books to Amazon.

Well, Amazon sends the information, or Ingram sends it to Amazon, but you can't get ahold of anybody.

So we published this author's book last week, and the, the cover's not on Amazon.

You can't talk to anybody.

Jonathan?

So according to Ed Nowatka's August 17th report in Publishers Weekly, Ingram Content Group opened Covered on August 17th, 2026 to booksellers, librarians, and other industry professionals.

The first live product is digital review copies.

If you want store buyers and the librarians to do acquisitions for their libraries to read your next book before publication day, a new Ingram pipeline has just opened beside Edelweiss and NetGalley.

One of my Discord members recently brought something to my attention that had completely flown under my radar.

Ingram Content Group has an option allowing publishers to opt out of knowingly selling physical books directly to AI companies for model training.

After doing some digging, I found a publisher's weekly article from January confirming this isn't exactly new.

Ingram had sent a letter to its publisher clients warning about a growing trend of AI companies purchasing physical books to scan and ingest the contents for training.

But I also know plenty of authors feel very differently, and I still want to make sure you're aware of something like this if it matters to you.

There is one pretty important limitation, though.

Based on Ingram's opt-out form, you need a direct relationship with Ingram Content Group to submit the request.

I haven't found anything showing that individual authors publishing through IngramSpark can submit the opt-out themselves.