Set up your print and ebook distribution
Decide how wide your distribution needs to be
Choose between Amazon only, Amazon plus the wider print trade, or everywhere including the ebook stores Amazon does not own, before you open any accounts.
Authors often hire help with this: metadata or distribution.
Why it matters
Every platform you open is another set of metadata to keep right, another royalty statement to read, and another place a wrong price can appear. Every platform you skip is a shop that cannot order your book. Deciding how wide you need to be, before you open accounts, keeps both of those lists short and deliberate. It also saves you from the most expensive beginner mistake, which is sending one ISBN into the trade through two services at once and then having to unpick it.
Your part
- What you do
- Decide. Make a judgment about fit, cost, or strategy.
- Who normally owns it
- Author. Yours on a self-published route; on a hybrid route ask the press which accounts it already holds
- When
- While you are planning, before you open any publishing account (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
Three questions settle this, and they are about your readers rather than about platforms. Where will people actually buy the book? Do you want a bookshop or a library to be able to order the print edition? Do you want the ebook in stores Amazon does not own?
Here is what each platform actually does, in plain terms.
Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) sells and prints for Amazon, and only for Amazon. You upload the files, Amazon lists the Kindle ebook, and Amazon prints the paperback or hardcover when somebody orders one. Amazon's page says KDP gives you free tools to publish and that a book appears in Amazon stores within 72 hours. KDP also offers Expanded Distribution, which Amazon describes as making the paperback available to distributors so that booksellers and libraries can find and order it, at a royalty of 40 percent of the list price minus printing costs. Amazon says enrolling does not guarantee that a distributor accepts the book or that any shop orders it.
IngramSpark is Ingram's self-publishing arm. Ingram is the wholesaler most bookshops and many library suppliers order through, and IngramSpark is the business Ingram sells to authors and small publishers who want their print book in that catalog. Its own pages say that signing up and uploading cost nothing and that it connects a book to over 45,000 libraries, retailers, and online stores. The money is in printing, shipping, ebook conversion, and the optional services sold alongside them, so read the current pricing page rather than a summary of it. Being clear about this matters: it is a paid service arm, not a neutral utility, and not everyone needs it. An author whose readers buy on Amazon does not. An author who wants a bookshop or a library to be able to order the print book usually does.
An ebook aggregator is one account that pushes your ebook out to many stores at once. Draft2Digital is one, and the Smashwords store is now among the channels Draft2Digital lists on its own partners page. PublishDrive is another; read its current terms on its own page. Draft2Digital's partners page names Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Everand, Tolino, Vivlio, Gardners, Fable, and Bookshop.org, plus the library ebook services OverDrive, Hoopla, cloudLibrary, and BorrowBox.
We do not recommend one platform over another. Here is the test rather than the answer.
- If you cannot name a bookshop or a library you want to be able to order the print book, you probably do not need wide print distribution yet.
- If you can name one, compare KDP's Expanded Distribution against an IngramSpark account on the two pages themselves, and pick one route for that ISBN, never both.
- If you can name a reader who does not own a Kindle, you need the ebook somewhere other than Amazon.
Fees and terms on all of these change, and they changed more than once while this checklist was being written. Check the current price on their page before you commit money to anything.
Common mistakes
- Opening every account first and deciding afterwards.
- Assuming wider is always better. Wide distribution costs time and admin, and an unsold copy in a shop can come back to you.
- Reading a forum post from years ago instead of the platform's current page.
- Sending the same ISBN into the trade through two services.
- Using a free platform-assigned ISBN and then finding it cannot be used anywhere else.
Identifiers for Decide how wide your distribution needs to be
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| 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 | |
| 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 |
What done looks like
- A written answer: Amazon only, Amazon plus the print trade, or everywhere.
- A reason for that answer that names real readers, shops, or libraries rather than a feeling about reach.
- One route chosen for each edition's ISBN, with the second route ruled out on purpose.
- The current fees read on each platform's own page on the day you decided, with the date noted beside them.
- A note of what you decided not to do, so the question stays settled.
Ask your publisher
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Sources and last checked
- Official source
- Official source (opens in a new tab)
- Other sources
- 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.