Ingram is updating their publishing policy

[RPatton]

Ingram sent out an email today with an update to their publishing policy that goes into effect April 27th.

1.   Summaries, workbooks, abbreviations, insights, or similar type content without permission from the original author.
2.   Books containing blank pages exceeding ten percent, notepads, scratchpads, journals, or similar type content.
3.   Books or content that mirror/mimic popular titles, including without limiting, similar covers, cover design, title, author names, or similar type content.
4.   Books that are misleading or likely to cause confusion by the buyer, including without limiting, inaccurate descriptions and cover art.
5.   Books listed at prices not reflective of the book's market value.
6.   Books scanned from original versions where all or parts contain illegible content to the detriment of the buyer.
7.   Books created using artificial intelligence or automated processes.

The way I see it, it's open enough for them to make decisions on a case by case basis, but I also think this is a good move. I have two books (journals) that could fall under the 10% policy. The pages aren't blank, they are lined and it was designed to meet the specific requests of another author. I need to reach out to them and make sure it will be okay and remain available, but I am not too worried.

[notthatamanda]

It says:

As of April 27, 2020, the below criteria describes the types of content that may not be accepted going forward:

Emphasis mine.  Have there been some problems? I would guess there must have been, but I haven't heard about anything.  Now I'm curious. Anyway, I'll hope that Ingram won't be flinging down the ban hammer like some other companies we work with.

PS I hope to order a new hardcover with the laminated cover and the dust jacket next week. I'll PM you pics if you are interested.

[RPatton]

It says:

As of April 27, 2020, the below criteria describes the types of content that may not be accepted going forward:

Emphasis mine.  Have there been some problems? I would guess there must have been, but I haven't heard about anything.  Now I'm curious. Anyway, I'll hope that Ingram won't be flinging down the ban hammer like some other companies we work with.

PS I hope to order a new hardcover with the laminated cover and the dust jacket next week. I'll PM you pics if you are interested.

Read the paragraph above that going forward bit:

"we will actively remove print content from our catalog that does harm to buyers and affects the reputations of our publishers and retail and library partners"

I have no idea what precipitated it, but considering how they have been helping me figure out how to do a back-to-back book through a POD I'm not worried about their implementation. The set up fee has been a barrier to entry, with the extended codes and issuing ISBNs so you don't have to bring your own, I imagine they've gotten a swell of books they don't usually see and might be nipping this in the bud before it's a problem.

And yes, I totally want to see pics! I am working on a special edition hardcover where the dust jacket will be different from the case laminate. I am so excited for this. What a way to give a book a little extra oomph.

[notthatamanda]

My pics will not be that interesting, just doing the same for both. That's a great idea, but I don't do my own covers so I don't want to pay for a second cover.  In fact I'm wondering if I will need to submit two files for it, and I hope I don't.
 
People must be doing scammy stuff for Ingram to react like this, ya think? But good grief it is hard to sell print books, how are they managing to sell them?

[LilyBLily]

Someone (maybe under many pen names) must be trying to perpetrate near counterfeits--enough quantity that Ingram took notice. I also wonder how that could possibly make a dent in the print book market, but these guys have nothing but time and money to try every trick, apparently.

Another possibility is that Amazon actually talks to Ingram and warned them about a particular upswing in fakery.

[notthatamanda]

If people were getting poor quality* books from Amazon, they would complain to Amazon, so that makes sense. And anyone who had their works counterfeited probably would as well. I'll never ceased to be amazed at the time and effort people put into a scam.

* I mean obviously scanned content

[Marti Talbott]

 Books listed at prices not reflective of the book's market value.

What does that actually mean? Example?

[notthatamanda]

I was wondering about that too. I figured a scanned copy of Tom Brady's cookbook selling for the same 200 bucks maybe?

[Eric Thomson]

Books listed at prices not reflective of the book's market value.

What does that actually mean? Example?

A $20 book listed for $200.  Generally, that's a sign of money laundering.  Just like one of your paperbacks on Amazon being offered by a third party seller for 10x its value.  That sort of stuff is rampant, and not only with books.  Amazon is probably the biggest money laundering website not on the dark net.

[notthatamanda]

Wow, I had no idea.

[RPatton]

Wow, I had no idea.

Ehh, the overpriced books might be related to cleaning money, but it's unlikely. The way the algo works and the buy box, a lot of those overpriced books aren't listed that way. I think this new policy is for a lot of different reasons, but cleaning money is the smallest of reasons.

When it comes to cleaning money, you need a cash heavy business. I did some work for a bank once and took a lot of courses on money laundering and identifying it. Setting up overpriced books for online sales might work for cleaning low volumes of cash, but once you're talking about even mid five figures, there are definitely better, safer, and more efficient ways.

[Bill Hiatt]

Didn't Amazon recently add some caveat about similar covers,etc.? Something big must have happened that we somehow missed.

I especially applaud 6 and 7. It always irks me to see some hard-to-get work and think, "Wow, it's great someone is rescuing this from oblivion," only to discover the product is all but unreadable because some scanned it and ran it through OCR without even the most cursory proofreading after. If you can't take the time to reconstruct the original text, don't bother!

And I've never been a fan of AI produced literature. If Ingram has to make a rule like this, it suggests some relatively unsatisfying AI products have actually circulated.

[She-la-te-da]

does harm to buyers and affects the reputations of our publishers and retail and library partners

The thing that gets me about this, which many think is related to the rush of "low content" books, is that buyers know that's what they're getting. It's in the product description, after all. If it's not, if the covers make it look like something else, if the metadata makes it look like something else, then fine. Take it out.

People get upset over the journals and bland books and such, but Amazon still hasn't changed any rules to say it's not allowed. So, blame Amazon. )They do seem to be taking days and days before they let them finish publishing.) Blame those folks promising millions of dollars with low content books. People have been trying to warn Amazon about a lot of things they allow, and nothing is ever done until there are enough customer complaints. It's like with KU, and people going all wack-a-doodle over short stories, but that was on Amazon, too. They knew darn well how it was going to work out, just like it happened when page reads came in and now we have mega books, a lot of which were junk and filled with nonsense.

[notthatamanda]

I don't know why people would get upset about a journal. There have always been expensive journals available in the stores. As long as the description says it's a journal, if someone wants to pay 10 or 20 bucks for it what's the problem? If I had the technical ability, I could see adapting the cover of my WWII book and making a journal. It's pretty and someone who read my book and liked it might go to my book page, see it and think, why not?

[RPatton]

I don't know why people would get upset about a journal. There have always been expensive journals available in the stores. As long as the description says it's a journal, if someone wants to pay 10 or 20 bucks for it what's the problem? If I had the technical ability, I could see adapting the cover of my WWII book and making a journal. It's pretty and someone who read my book and liked it might go to my book page, see it and think, why not?

They aren't upset about journals. They are upset about the low-quality journals. I have a journal designed to an author's specifications and Ingram has said, it won't be a problem. What they want to get rid of are the no content books with crap covers.

[RPatton]

Here's the official statement about why they are cleaning up their catalog:

https://www.ingramspark.com/blog/ingramsparks-catalog-integrity-announcement?

Kind of nice to see a company actually care about the integrity of their catalog.

[deedee]

I don't know why people would get upset about a journal. There have always been expensive journals available in the stores. As long as the description says it's a journal, if someone wants to pay 10 or 20 bucks for it what's the problem? If I had the technical ability, I could see adapting the cover of my WWII book and making a journal. It's pretty and someone who read my book and liked it might go to my book page, see it and think, why not?

They're upset because junk sellers are buying an automated turnkey system that allows them to upload 100+ garbage no/lo content books A DAY.

[notthatamanda]

Okay I get that, thanks for explaining. But Ingram generally costs $49 to set up a book. How can even the scammiest scammers hope to recoup that in sales? They can't robot their KU reads to generate income, someone has to buy the book.

[RPatton]

Okay I get that, thanks for explaining. But Ingram generally costs $49 to set up a book. How can even the scammiest scammers hope to recoup that in sales? They can't robot their KU reads to generate income, someone has to buy the book.

Because of the Nano code.

Instead of punishing everyone, Ingram is going after to the source. It's a novel concept compared to how Amazon operates.

[notthatamanda]

Wow I don't understand any of that. But I'll google later, you don't have to waste time explaining it to me.

[AmHere]

Because of the Nano code.

Instead of punishing everyone, Ingram is going after to the source. It's a novel concept compared to how Amazon operates.

Could you expand more please? I googled Nano code and couldn't find anything that would be pertinent to this. Thank you.

[Lynn]

Winners of nanowrimo (national novel writing month) get a code for free uploads at Ingram spark. The code is pretty much freely available I've been told. So they are not paying a fee to get these no/low content journals into the system.

[RPatton]

Winners of nanowrimo (national novel writing month) get a code for free uploads at Ingram spark. The code is pretty much freely available I've been told. So they are not paying a fee to get these no/low content journals into the system.

And with the free ISBNs they aren't paying for that either.

Instead of Ingram removing the nano code and punishing all indie publishers, they are saying we can remove X (low-content/no-content, scraped, skeevy books) at our discretion. (Leaving the door open to individual cases sticking around.)

I was suggesting that Amazon's response would be to yank the code.