Entering Your Book Details

What to do

Enter your title's metadata in IngramSpark, title, subtitle, contributors, description, keywords/categories, and publishing rights.

Why it matters

This is the same category of information you already entered in KDP (title, subtitle, description, keywords, categories, rights), but you enter it again separately here. IngramSpark and KDP don't share data with each other, and each has its own metadata screens and its own category/BISAC system.

Step-by-step

• Enter your title and subtitle in their own separate fields, exactly matching what's printed on your actual cover, the same rule that applied in KDP.
• List every contributor (author, co-author, illustrator, editor, foreword writer) with their correct contributor role; IngramSpark's metadata feeds directly into how bookstores and library systems display and search for your book, so accuracy here matters even more than on a single retailer's site.
• Write your book description for the field IngramSpark provides, you can reuse the description you already wrote for KDP as a starting point, but check IngramSpark's own character limit since it may differ from KDP's.
• Choose keywords and categories using IngramSpark's own category system (it uses BISAC subject codes, the same standard system many print catalogs and library systems use, rather than KDP's own browse category tree), pick the categories that most specifically match your book, the same principle as the KDP keywords topic earlier in this stage.
• Confirm your publishing rights the same way you did for KDP: you're confirming you actually own or control the rights to publish this exact content, not just that you have permission to view it.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Assuming metadata you entered in KDP automatically carries over to IngramSpark, it doesn't; the two platforms are entirely separate and each needs its own complete entry.
• Picking BISAC categories that are the broadest possible match instead of the most specific accurate one, the same mistake the KDP keywords topic warns against.
• Picking a BISAC category the book doesn't genuinely fit just to land somewhere less competitive; bookstore buyers and library systems use these codes to shelve and filter books, and a wrong fit misleads the very people trying to find or stock it.
• Keyword stuffing in the IngramSpark keyword field the same way the KDP topic warns against, cramming in unrelated terms wastes the field instead of helping discovery.

Completion checklist

0 of 4 checked

• I entered my title, subtitle, and all contributors in IngramSpark, matching my actual cover.
• I entered my book description into IngramSpark's description field.
• I chose specific, accurate BISAC categories and keywords in IngramSpark.
• I confirmed I own or control the publishing rights to this book's actual content.

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