Scriptaluna.Press

by Silvia Passiflora, Editor | Scriptaluna
May 23, 2026

When I started planning distribution for my debut poetry book, Aurora Cantus: A Poet’s Book of Hours, I realized I wasn’t choosing between platforms so much as assigning each one a role.

All three are non-exclusive.

Amazon KDP and IngramSpark are print-on-demand platforms, which means there’s no garage full of inventory and no large upfront print bill. The tradeoff is margin. Amazon takes a significant percentage of the list price before printing costs are deducted, so the final royalty is whatever remains after those layers are removed. Convenience has a price, and part of independent publishing is understanding where the percentages actually go.

The local printer works differently. I pay upfront for a batch, but I keep 100% of each direct sale afterward. The per-unit cost drops with volume, the paper quality is noticeably better, and perhaps most importantly, I can hold a physical proof in my hands before committing to a full run. That tactile stage matters to me. Poetry books are objects as much as they are texts.

Each path serves a different purpose.

The Amazon listing legitimizes and distributes. It gives the book a searchable commercial footprint that readers already understand instinctively.

The IngramSpark listing reaches bookstores, libraries, and institutional systems that often bypass Amazon entirely. That layer matters because discoverability is not only algorithmic. Some of it still moves through librarians, buyers, catalogs, and recommendation chains that have existed long before social media.

The local print run is the artifact. It is the version made for readings, launch events, signed copies, and direct connection. The paper stock is heavier. The colors hold differently. It feels closer to the book I imagined while writing it.

Independent publishing has taught me that distribution is less about finding one perfect system and more about understanding what each system actually does well.
 

At some point, I’ll do a full breakdown of what the actual net profit looks like after each platform takes its percentage — and, in the case of my own press, what the upfront production costs really are before a single copy is sold. That conversation deserves its own post because the economics of independent publishing are often far less visible than the aesthetics.

Different tools for different goals.

Aurora Cantus: A Poet’s Book of Hours 
by Silvia Passiflora
Scriptaluna Press
ISBN 979-8-9959704-0-8
LCCN 2026913755
$20 USA
 

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