Last time I was talking about the two ways to get published and I gave a hint on how to make possible even for an indie author to have a concrete chance to have their books listed on physical bookstores.There is the combination Amazon/KDP + IngramSpark that seems to work quite well on that sense.
The open question I wanted to focus the attention was the quality between the two prints and how to solve a couple of barely perceptible difference between the two prints.
1. The tones of the colors.
Since there aren’t two printing machines that give the same results, you need to understand that there will be some differences and, in this case, I have noticed that the colors of the book printed from Amazon are brighter and more vibrant than those in the cover printed by IngramSpark.
Again, the difference is minimal, and you can be happy with the result obtained without the need to change anything. However, if you prefer having the exact same results, keep in mind to brighten the colors for the cover printed by IngramSpark.
2. The trim and cover formatting:
Although the trim is the same, there is a substantial difference between the margins suggested by Amazon and those by IngramSpark. The latter prefers keeping the bleed thinner, so you need to calibrate the two covers according to the guidelines so that they will look exactly the same once printed.
3. Inside the books:
Honestly, the quality of the binding is in both cases excellent, and I have nothing to say about. I use the cream color for the pages of the book, because it gives that lovely nostalgic look old books have, so the Amazon version is slightly lighter cream color barely noticeable, and the print is larger, making the book thicker (404 pages in the Amazon version against the 398 of the IngramSpark version).
Once you know in advance about those little differences between the two prints, you can plan the cover accurately so to have two perfectly equal paperbacks. However, considering that those difference do not affect the general quality of the product, you can also decide to ignore them.
Personally, I am not going to make any change in this book, rather I am going to correct those small issues for the next books.
I hope this information was useful, have a great day!
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I've found the KDP print quality better than Ingram as well. When I got the proof copy for one of my children's books, I had to lighten the illustrations because it printed too dark. Also, another book was misprinted, it started on page 35, they left out an entire chapter. I don't know what changed, they used to be great. My advice is to order your proof before you approve the book for printing.
ReplyDeleteinteresting information.
ReplyDeleteGreat tips for getting the best of out both of these services.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the info
ReplyDeleteThank you for the advice. To me, submitting my work to KDP, Draft 2 Digital, etc. is a nightmare. Strangely, I could always deal with submitting to Createspace.
ReplyDelete