IngramSpark Title Setup — Step-by-Step Guide

Reusable process for publishing any Mindful Machines Press title through IngramSpark. Derived from IngramSpark’s official “Print Book Setup Guide” and “File Creation Guide” (Aug 2026 editions), plus real setup experience from The Rope and the Algorithm.

Set up Ebook and Print Book as two separate title records — do not use “Print & Ebook” combined unless the two formats share nothing that needs independent editing (they almost never do: different ISBN, different file, often different front-matter wording).

0. Before you start — decisions to make in advance

Don’t start the wizard until you have these ready, or the flow keeps stalling on “STOP and ask me” fields:

• ISBN for this specific format, from your owned 10-block. Paperback, hardback, and ebook each need their own distinct ISBN — never reuse one across formats.
• List price per market (USD at minimum), and a decision on wholesale discount % (55% = standard trade discount, gets full bookstore reach; lower discounts limit retailer pickup).
• Returns policy decision: No / Yes-Deliver / Yes-Destroy. Selecting “No” for the US market blocks US bookstores from ordering it, since they can’t order non-returnable stock.
• Publication date and (optionally) a separate on-sale date.
• Trim size, interior color/paper, binding (print only) — for MMP’s default: 6”×9”, Black & White, Paperback. Paper choice (White 50/70, Creme, or Groundwood/Eggshell) affects spine width, so lock this in before generating a cover template.
• Final page count — for print, this must come from the actual print-ready PDF (after layout/margins/bleed are applied), not a Word page count estimate. For ebook, see the word-count formula in §4.

1. Getting started

1. Log into the IngramSpark account.
2. Dashboard → Add a Title (Quick Links, or Titles → Add Title in the sidebar).
3. Choose Print Book Only, Ebook Only, or Print & Ebook — for MMP, always the two separate single-format options, run twice.
4. “Do you have files ready to upload?”
   • Yes → only pick this once your interior PDF (print) or EPUB (ebook) is fully built and spec-compliant. Don’t pick this prematurely — you’ll be blocked at the upload step if the files aren’t actually ready.
   • No, I would like to see the available options for creating files → opens the free Book-Building Tool or a paid formatting expert. Use if you don’t want to hand-build the EPUB/cover yourself.
   • No, but I will enter my title information and submit files later → lets you complete all metadata now and upload files once ready. This is the recommended default — metadata entry doesn’t depend on the files being finished.
5. If prompted “What would you like to do?”: Print, distribute, and sell book (not “Only print book,” which skips retail distribution — only use that for author-copy-only print runs).

2. Title information

• Title / Subtitle — subtitle is a separate field, entered later under “Show more fields.”
• Language.
• Print ISBN / Ebook ISBN — enter your owned ISBN for this specific format. Never select “Receive a free ISBN, owned by IngramSpark” for an MMP title — it locks the imprint name to “Indy Pub” and ties you to IngramSpark exclusively for that ISBN.
• Publishing Rights — “I own the copyright or hold necessary publishing rights.”
• AI-use disclosure (“Has Artificial Intelligence been used in the creation of this work?”) — answer honestly and specifically, matching whatever your book’s own printed AI-use disclosure says. Check Text, Images, and/or Editorial Function individually based on where AI was actually used (these are exact combinations, not independent tags — read the checkbox label carefully, e.g. “Text | Editorial Function” is a single distinct option from “Text” alone). Keep this consistent with the book’s own printed AI Use note — a mismatch between what’s disclosed here and what’s printed in the book is a real inconsistency, not just a formality.
• Show more fields → Book Subtitle, Series Name/Number, Edition Name/Number (leave series/edition blank unless applicable).

Authors & Contributors

• Role, First/Last Name — for “Viveka Mohan Das,” enter First Name = Viveka, Last Name = Mohan Das (one unit), matching how the name is styled everywhere else (cover, site, ORCID record). Check how it renders in the byline preview before finalizing.
• “Show more fields” → Contributor Location (Sydney, NSW, Australia), Contributor Biography, Contributor Prior Work, Contributor Affiliations. Do not list an editor/designer here — only actual content contributors (co-authors, illustrators).

Categorize your title

• Select Imprint → Mindful Machines Press (use “Add Imprint” the first time; it’ll be in the dropdown for subsequent titles).
• Subjects (BISAC) — up to 3. Make sure at least one BISAC subject reflects each major subject area of the book, not just the most “techy” one — IngramSpark Assist’s auto-suggestions have repeatedly defaulted to narrow computer-science subcategories (e.g., “Expert Systems,” “Natural Language Processing”) that miss a book’s history/humanities half entirely. Always review and correct AI-suggested BISAC codes against the actual table of contents.
• Select Audience — “Trade/General (Adult)” for a general-reader nonfiction title; reserve “Professional/Scholar (Adult)” only if you deliberately want academic/library-only positioning, since it narrows retail categorization.
• Show more fields → Regional Subject (e.g., India, if geographically relevant), Thema Subjects (international classification, used by UK/EU retailers and libraries — pick 2–4 that round out what BISAC covers, don’t just duplicate the AI/tech angle), Thema Qualifiers (facets: place, time period — check these stay consistent with what the book itself claims, e.g. don’t over-narrow a historical date range beyond what the book’s own text supports), Table of Contents (paste full ToC text), Review Quotes (leave blank until you have real reviews — never fabricate placeholder blurbs).

Title description

• Full Description — 200–4000 bytes (note: bytes, not characters; HTML markup counts toward this if you use the HTML source view, and IngramSpark’s actual byte-counting has run higher than a simple UTF-8 byte count in practice — leave real margin, don’t cut it right down to 3900). Straightforward, consumer-friendly synopsis. Can use light HTML (<p>, <b>, <i>) via the </> source-view toggle for premium formatting.
• Keywords — semicolon-separated. Include the book’s actual core terms (don’t let an AI-suggested list omit the single most obvious search term — check for it explicitly, e.g. “artificial intelligence” was missing from an auto-generated list for an AI book). Cut vague/invented-sounding phrases an AI keyword generator sometimes produces (e.g., “procedural truth,” “computational history”) in favor of real search terms.
• Show more fields → Short Description (max 250 bytes, used on retailer sites — tight, one or two sentences, must accurately represent the whole book, not just one case study or chapter).

See the Book Metadata & Categorization Guide for the full reasoning behind these fields.

3. Print information (print titles only)

• Trim Size, Interior Color and Paper, Binding (Paperback/Hardback), Cover finish.
• Page Count — must match the actual interior PDF page count. Round odd counts up to the next even number.
• Print Pricing — list price, wholesale discount, returns per market. Check the “I understand selecting ‘No’ limits US bookstore purchasing” box only if you’ve deliberately chosen non-returnable.
• Print Options — Look Inside the Book, Large Text Edition, Right-to-Left Content — leave unchecked unless applicable.
• Print Release Dates — Publication Date (required); On-Sale Date defaults to match if left blank.

4. Ebook page count (ebook titles only)

IngramSpark’s own instruction: “If you have a print edition, enter that number. For ebook titles only, you can base the page count on (1250 words = a page).”

• This is not the real print page count — it’s a much coarser unit specific to this field.
• Formula: total manuscript word count ÷ 1250, rounded to the nearest whole number.
• Sanity check against the real print page count: total words ÷ ~200–250 words per actual printed page (at 6×9” trim) should land close to the real print page count. If it doesn’t, the word count is probably wrong.
• Example from The Rope and the Algorithm: 34,388 words → 34,388 ÷ 1250 = 27.5 → enter 28. (Real print book: ~166 pages, consistent with ~207 words/page — same word count, two different “page” conventions. Don’t be alarmed that the two numbers look wildly different; they’re not in conflict.)

5. Distribution channels — critical if also publishing on Amazon KDP directly

If you’re running a wide distribution strategy (KDP direct for Amazon, IngramSpark for everywhere else), see the KDP + IngramSpark Dual Distribution Strategy guide for the full reasoning. Summary for this step:

• Do NOT opt in to “Amazon (Ebook)” distribution through IngramSpark if you’re already publishing that same ISBN directly to Amazon via KDP (non-exclusive, not enrolled in KDP Select). IngramSpark’s own screen warns about this: opting in when you have a direct Amazon relationship for the same ISBN creates a duplicate-listing conflict.
• Do opt in to Apple (Ebook), Lightning Source Sharjah (print-on-demand region), and other non-Amazon channels — this is exactly the “everywhere except Amazon” setup that makes wide distribution work.

6. File upload, validation, payment

• Print Upload: interior PDF + cover PDF, built to spec (see the Print File Specifications guide).
• Ebook Upload: EPUB file + JPG cover — RGB, front-cover-only, 2560px longest side / 1600px min shortest side (the opposite color mode from the print cover PDF; see the Print File Specifications guide). See the EPUB Conversion & Validation guide for the EPUB file itself.
• Validation: Title Metadata Validation and Content Files Validation run automatically. Fix every listed error before proceeding — don’t select “Yes, Proceed with My Files as They are” to bypass real validator errors; they indicate the file won’t process correctly downstream.
• Payment: Review Order Summary, check “I Agree,” submit. After this point, any correction is a $25 revision fee — do a final full read-through/QA pass (see the Pre-Publication QA Checklist) before approving.

7. Post-submission: IngramSpark does not notify you of status changes

Unlike KDP, IngramSpark sends no email for either cancellation or approval — you have to check the dashboard yourself. A “Cancelled” status with no stated reason has, in practice, been caused by a cover file that doesn’t match the declared trim/spec (see the Print File Specifications guide) — re-check cover dimensions first if a title cancels without explanation. Build in a manual dashboard check a few days after submission, and again after any resubmission; don’t assume silence means still-pending.

IngramSpark itself is not a retailer and has no consumer-facing storefront or buy link. “Enabled for Distribution: Yes” means your metadata has been pushed out to wholesale channels (Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and others) — each retailer then builds its own product page and buy link independently, on its own timeline, often days and sometimes longer. Don’t expect a buy link to appear immediately, and don’t look for one on the IngramSpark dashboard itself — check each retailer’s own site directly once you expect propagation to have happened.

Reusable checklist for the next title

• Two separate title records (print, ebook), not combined
• Distinct ISBN per format, from owned block
• BISAC + Thema subjects cover every major subject area of the book, not just the most obvious one
• AI-use disclosure checkbox matches the book’s own printed AI-use note exactly
• Full Description and Short Description both reviewed for accuracy (not just AI-Assist accepted blindly)
• Ebook page count = word count ÷ 1250, sanity-checked against real print pages
• Amazon distribution left OFF in IngramSpark if also running direct KDP for Amazon
• Files validated clean before final approval — no unresolved validator errors
• Checked IngramSpark dashboard directly for status — don’t wait on an email