By Nancy Hellekson
Direct from their website:
8 SEPTEMBER 2021 // PRICING UPDATES
“Amidst significant uncertainty in the global supply chain, IngramSpark is committed to supporting the book industry with the best possible service through the busy holiday season and into 2022. Over the past several months, the publishing industry has seen several cost increases for consumables, such as paper and packaging materials, as well as an increase in the cost of labor. Operating safely during the pandemic also has required additional resources and investments in manufacturing and distribution centers.
As a result of these industry-wide challenges, effective November 6th, 2021, IngramSpark is increasing print pricing as follows:
- US (United States) market: 6% increase
- UK (United Kingdom) & AU (Australia) markets: 3% increase
These changes do not apply to freight, handling, or title setup related fees.
View our updated rate card.
To help you assess any increases you may need to make to your retail pricing, we will be adding the future pricing view to our online pricing calculators. You should expect to see that view appear within the next two weeks. As a reminder, you can update your retail pricing through the IngramSpark website, with changes going into effect every Friday at 12:01 AM US Central Time.
We will also be identifying titles that will move into negative publisher compensation because of these price changes and will communicate that title information to you within the next two weeks. “
This poses a few problems for authors:
Will I have to raise the price of your book?
Usually royalties from IngramSpark are small because they sell your book wholesale for 55% of the list price and then charge for printing costs etc. With a 6% printing increase from IngramSpark may mean that you’ll have to raise the price of your book.
If you raise the price of your book, you’ll need a new barcode label with the new price and you’ll need to put that on your cover.
That means you’ll have to upload the revised cover to IngramSpark.
This is going to be a pain in the neck for may authors and publishers.
Why is This Happening?
One reason is the shortage of paper:
“Across the nation, printers and direct mail houses are experiencing a massive paper shortage. Some stocks are simply no longer available, while others are taking much longer to be delivered. Paper that is available is dramatically rising in price. Consequently, clients who use print and direct mail are experiencing longer project production times as well as increased costs.”
For more information and great graphics go to DotCorp.
