2026-11-13 · all guides

Publishing the Same Book on KDP and IngramSpark: ISBNs, Expanded Distribution and Ebooks

Who does what

The two services cover different shelves.

• KDP sells your ebook and paperback on Amazon. It is the simplest way to be on Amazon and it pays the higher Amazon royalty.
• IngramSpark lists your paperback (and hardcover) in Ingram's wholesale catalog. That catalog is where bookstores and libraries order from, so this is the route if you want a shop or a library to be able to order the book.

Most authors who want both use KDP for Amazon and IngramSpark for everyone else. The thing that makes this work, or makes it fail, is the ISBN.

Decide the ISBN first

KDP offers a free ISBN for paperbacks and hardcovers. Its help page is clear that a free KDP ISBN can only be used on KDP and cannot be used to publish outside KDP. If you take it, you cannot use that number on IngramSpark.

So if you plan to be on both, buy your own ISBN before you set up either one:

• US: Bowker is the ISBN agency.
• UK and Ireland: Nielsen is the ISBN agency.
• Elsewhere, your country has its own agency, and in some countries ISBNs are free.

Each format needs its own ISBN. The paperback gets one and the hardcover gets another. A Kindle ebook does not need one on KDP, because Amazon identifies it with its own ASIN.

Use the same paperback ISBN on KDP and on IngramSpark, with the same title, author name, trim size and page count, so both listings describe one book.

Leave Expanded Distribution off

KDP's Expanded Distribution is a checkbox that offers your paperback to bookstores and libraries through KDP instead. It overlaps with what IngramSpark does, and KDP's own help page sets a condition: the book's ISBN must not have been submitted for distribution through another service.

If the same ISBN is going through IngramSpark, leave Expanded Distribution unticked on KDP. That keeps one route to bookstores and avoids the two services competing to distribute the same number. Our post on KDP Expanded Distribution covers what that checkbox pays when you do use it on its own.

The ebook: KDP Select or wide

KDP Select is optional. Enrolling the ebook puts it in Kindle Unlimited and gives you promotion tools, but while it is enrolled the ebook has to be exclusive to Amazon, in 90-day terms. That rule covers the ebook only. Your paperback can be on IngramSpark either way.

If you skip Select, you can sell the ebook elsewhere too. A distributor such as Draft2Digital sends one ebook file to Apple Books, Kobo, Barnes & Noble and library apps from a single upload. Our posts on publishing on Apple Books and Apple Books versus Barnes & Noble Press go into those stores.

There is no right answer for everyone. Select tends to suit genre fiction read in Kindle Unlimited. Going wide tends to suit books that sell through libraries and non-Amazon readers, which often includes memoir and nonfiction.

Covers and interiors are not interchangeable

The same interior PDF usually works on both services, as long as the trim size and margins meet both sets of requirements. The cover is different. The spine width depends on the page count and on each printer's paper, so KDP and IngramSpark each give you their own cover template, and a wrap made for one will not line up on the other. A cover made for a third printer, such as one used for early author copies, needs the same check.

Work out the KDP spine with the free spine width calculator, and get IngramSpark's template from its own cover generator. If the interior itself needs rebuilding to meet both specs, see manuscript formatting.

A release date for both

KDP pre-orders are ebook only. A Kindle edition can be put on pre-order up to 18 months ahead, which gives readers something to order while the print editions are finished. KDP does not offer pre-orders for paperbacks or hardcovers; a scheduled print release keeps the product page hidden until release day. Our KDP pre-order guide covers the deadlines.

FAQ