Kobo join the print-on-demand game — but should you play?

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Many Kobo Writing Life authors recently received an invitation to take part in a beta print-on-demand program at Kobo. Not all Kobo authors received this invitation, myself included, because the program is a subcontract to the POD manufacturer Lightning Source International (LSI): if you already have print books distributed by Ingram, the print distributor and parent company of LSI/Ingram Spark, and if your print books’ ISBNs are in Kobo’s system, then there is no point in them contacting you. For this new POD service, Kobo is charging authors USD $25.00 Read More …

Is Canada the next battleground between Amazon and Lightning Source?

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In The Global Indie Author I write at length about the predatory practices Amazon/CreateSpace have exercised in the area of print on demand. Watching what’s going on with the Amazon Canada catalogue, I am of the opinion that CreateSpace are positioning themselves to supply the Canadian market directly. Why do I believe this? To answer that we need to look at bit at the history between CreateSpace and its main rival, Lightning Source International, a subsidiary of the giant U.S. wholesale distributor Ingram. Amazon had long been selling titles for Read More …

CreateSpace add European distribution, decrease payment thresholds

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Over the past few weeks CreateSpace have made two important changes: they have decreased their payment threshold from $20/£20/€20 to $10/£10/€10; and they have now added direct distribution to Amazon.co.uk (UK), Amazon.de (Germany), Amazon.fr (France), Amazon.es (Spain), and Amazon.it (Italy). I hesitated to write about this immediately as I wanted to check first what the Amazon catalogue would list as the estimated delivery time for each site. Would it be as with Amazon.com where all CreateSpace titles would be listed as “In Stock” or would it be the same as Read More …