Set up your print and ebook distribution
Avoid double-listing the same ISBN
Keep one edition on one distribution route: the same ISBN (International Standard Book Number) sent into the trade through two services at once creates a conflict somebody has to unpick.
Authors often hire help with this: metadata or distribution.
Why it matters
A conflicting record does not announce itself. It shows up as a book a shop cannot order, a duplicate edition splitting reviews and sales rank, or a correction that keeps undoing itself, and each of those costs sales that are never reported to you. Untangling it later means changing settings at the source and then waiting for the feeds to catch up, which takes weeks. Deciding one route per ISBN at setup takes ten minutes.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author. Author-publisher controls both settings, so only the author can create or clear this conflict
- When
- After the platforms are set up, and again at launch (Set up your print and ebook distribution: twelve to three months before publication, once the isbns are settled and the files are close to final)Checked September 15, 2026 (opens in a new tab)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
Every edition of your book has its own International Standard Book Number (ISBN), and every ISBN should travel into the book trade by one route. If the same ISBN is sent to wholesalers by two services, the wholesaler's record ends up with two sources for one product, and the version a bookshop sees is whichever arrived last.
This is not an opinion. Amazon's Expanded Distribution page states that your book's ISBN must not have been submitted for distribution through another service. So an ISBN enrolled in Expanded Distribution and also set up for wide distribution on IngramSpark is a conflict under Amazon's own rule, and the usual advice from authors who have lived through it is to pick one and turn the other off.
Selling on a platform is different from distributing through it, and it is worth keeping the two apart in your head. Having the paperback for sale on Amazon and also available through Ingram is normal. Enrolling the same ISBN in two services that both push it out to wholesalers is not.
The symptoms are quiet. A duplicate listing on a retailer page. A price or a page count that reverts after you correct it. An availability status that says the book cannot be ordered when you know it can. A bookseller who tells you the record looks strange. None of these arrive as an error message, which is why this is a step and not a footnote.
What to do: write down, for each ISBN, which service carries it into the trade and which service is deliberately switched off. Then check the listings a few weeks after setup, and again at launch, against what you decided. If you find a conflict, turn one route off at the source rather than trying to correct the record downstream, because the feed will simply overwrite your correction.
A separate version of the same trap: a free platform-assigned ISBN. Amazon's help page says a free ISBN from Amazon can only be used on KDP and cannot be used to publish outside it. An ISBN you own avoids the question entirely.
Common mistakes
- Enrolling in Expanded Distribution and then opening a wide distribution route elsewhere for the same ISBN, or the reverse.
- Confusing being for sale on a platform with being distributed by it.
- Correcting a wholesaler record instead of the feed that produced it, so the error returns.
- Reusing one ISBN across formats, which creates a different but equally permanent problem.
- Assuming a duplicate listing will merge itself.
Identifiers for Avoid double-listing the same ISBN
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| ISBN The International Standard Book Number, printed above the barcode. Most formats sold through the book trade get their own. | Every retailer, wholesaler, and library orders and lists your book by this number, and the title, contributors, format, price, and publication date attached to it are what those systems display, so one wrong detail shows up in many places at once. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally receive the numbers from the publisher and check what is attached to each one. If you publish the book yourself, you buy the numbers and assign them, and you are the one who decides whether your imprint or a platform is recorded as the publisher. Keep one list of every ISBN beside the edition and format it identifies so you can check listings against it. | Add your ISBN-13 | |
| Ingram The wholesale catalog most bookstores and libraries order from, plus IngramSpark, the self-publishing platform that feeds into it. | This decides whether a bookstore or library can order your book through the channel most of them use, and on what terms, so when a shop says it cannot order your book this is usually where the answer sits. Ingram's data also reaches many retailers and library vendors, so an error in the record can surface in several places. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask whether the title is in Ingram wholesale, at what wholesale discount, and whether it is returnable, since those are the two terms a bookseller checks before ordering; if you publish the book yourself, you set the discount and the return policy in IngramSpark, and both have real money attached. Get the discount and return terms in writing, then check that the title record matches the other major listings. | Nothing to record |
What done looks like
- A written line for each ISBN: the format, the platform that carries it into the trade, and the route deliberately switched off.
- No ISBN enrolled in Amazon's Expanded Distribution and also set up for wide distribution elsewhere.
- Retail and wholesaler listings checked a few weeks after setup and again at launch, against that written record.
- Any duplicate edition on a retailer page reported to whoever controls the feed that created it.
- Corrections made at the source rather than on the listing that copied the error.
Evidence. Done means someone says the work happened. Verified means you checked the confirmation, link, or public record yourself.
Ask your publisher
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Sources and last checked
- Official source
- Official source (opens in a new tab)
- Last checked
- September 15, 2026
- How confident we are
- Verified
Rules and deadlines change. We last checked this information on September 15, 2026. If you see something that needs updating, please tell us.