Where to print: KDP, IngramSpark, Lulu and B&N Press
The question is rarely which printer is best. It is where you want the book to be available, and how much setup you are willing to do to get it there.
Here is what each of the four is for, and the one measurement fact that costs authors the most time.
The four, in short
- Amazon KDP — the default. It prints and sells on Amazon, which is where the large majority of self-published print copies are bought, and it has the simplest setup of the four. If your readers find books on Amazon, this is the shortest path from file to listing.
- IngramSpark — the route to everyone else. Ingram is the wholesaler that bookstores and libraries actually order from, so a book not in Ingram is, to most of the trade, a book that does not exist. It also has the most real setup expectations of the four: stricter file review, more metadata up front, and trade choices — returns, wholesale discount — that a bookstore buyer checks before ordering.
- Lulu — direct sales and short runs. Its strength is selling from your own site and getting a box of books for an event, a class, or a signing, without going through a retail listing at all. It also offers distribution, but the direct route is the reason to pick it.
- B&N Press — Barnes & Noble. It prints for and sells through barnesandnoble.com, and it is the direct route into the B&N ecosystem rather than reaching B&N secondhand through a wholesaler.
They do not measure a book the same way
This is the part that costs people a week.
A print cover file is not a picture of a cover. It is a set of measurements, and the four printers do not take the same ones.
- Paper bulk differs. The same 300 pages is a different spine width at each printer, because their stocks have different thickness per sheet — and cream and white differ from each other as well. Build a spine for one and use it at another and you can be off by a millimeter or more, which is enough to pull the front artwork off center and push spine text onto a fold.
- Bleed and wrap geometry differ. How far artwork must extend past the trim, and how much extra the wrap needs beyond that, are per-printer specifications, not a shared standard.
- Hardcover wraps differ most. Case laminate and dust jacket wrap boards that are larger than the page block, and each printer specifies its own board size, hinge and fore-edge overhang. That changes where the visible face of the front cover actually starts, so a hardcover wrap is the least portable file of all.
The consequence is simple and worth saying plainly: a cover built for one printer is not a valid file for another. It is not a scaling problem you can solve in an image editor. A file that passes review at one can be rejected at another — and the more expensive failure is the one that is accepted and prints with the spine visibly off, because the press does exactly what the file says.
So the assumption to drop is "I'll upload the same PDF everywhere."
In the Cover Maker. Choose the printer and binding and the wrap is measured to that printer's own spec — spine width from your real page count and paper color, with live trim, bleed and safe-area guides. One design re-cuts for every printer and binding it supports: up to eleven wrap files from the same artwork. Start a book → · about the Cover Maker
Most authors end up using more than one
The common arrangement is KDP for Amazon and IngramSpark for everywhere else: Amazon prints and fulfills its own orders, while Ingram is what a bookstore or library orders from. Lulu sits alongside either one for direct sales.
Two useful things follow from that.
You will produce more than one cover file for the same book. Same design, same artwork, different measurements — one wrap per printer, and per binding if you sell paperback and hardcover. That is a production step to plan for, not a surprise.
Check how the channels overlap. If a book is listed through more than one route, the accounts have settings that decide which retailers each one feeds, and it is worth setting them deliberately rather than letting two sources compete for the same listing.
Criteria, not a verdict
- Where will people actually buy it? If the honest answer is Amazon, start there and add distribution later.
- Do you need bookstores or libraries? Then you need the wholesale route, and you need to accept the trade terms that come with it.
- Will you sell direct, or need a box of copies in hand? That points to a short-run and direct-sales printer.
- How much setup can you tolerate right now? The simplest account gets a book live fastest; the demanding one reaches further. Neither is the right answer for everyone.
- Whose ISBN? An ISBN a printer hands you free is generally usable only with that printer. An ISBN you buy yourself travels with the book to every printer you ever use — which matters a great deal if you expect to use two.
Order a physical copy from each
Order one proof before you announce the book — and if you use two printers, one from each. Paper shade, spine placement and cover finish are not identical between them, and the copy in your hand is the only thing that tells you which file was actually right.
Make yours
Everything here is built into the tools, and they are free to use: name your book, bring your manuscript or your artwork, and work as long as you like. You only pay when you want the files without the preview watermark.
Next in this guide: Choosing a trim size · Book cover dimensions · Spine width · Mistakes that mark a book as self-published