IngramSpark

Content licence

A non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable and irrevocable worldwide licence to print, advertise, distribute, reproduce and store titles — irrevocable except through the termination route in section 4 — sublicensable to Ingram Content Group companies and the platforms they control. Section 6.2 also carries the right to reformat titles, to edit and modify metadata at Ingram’s sole discretion, and to display limited portions publicly; the publisher separately has to supply covers, contents and up to 20% of each title as promotional content that “may not be subject to any form of content security”. Under the Global Connect programme the print files also go to third-party printers abroad, released per order and deleted by them within a reasonable time. The sharper point is separate from the work itself: rights in title metadata — including metadata Ingram has enhanced or modified — are perpetual and expressly survive termination of the agreement.

AI and model training

A positive result rather than an inference, as of the 20 March 2025 terms: the words “artificial intelligence”, “machine learning” and “training” appear nowhere in the agreement. That is silence, not an exclusion, and section 6.2 is where the silence matters — it grants the right to reformat, edit, modify and reproduce titles and metadata, and to enhance portions of the title file, at Ingram’s sole discretion. Nothing in the wording contemplates model training, and nothing in it rules the practice out either.

Deletion

A title can be withdrawn on thirty days’ written notice, and the agreement itself terminated on forty-five; fees already paid are not refunded. What withdrawal does not do is remove the file. Section 5.4.1 lets Lightning Source keep archival copies, and lets Resellers retain ebooks so that people who already bought one keep their access — both surviving termination. Ingram also disclaims responsibility for any retailer that carries on listing, advertising or taking orders for a title after Ingram has cancelled it in its own systems. The metadata is firmer still: the rights in it are perpetual and expressly outlive the agreement, so withdrawal ends distribution rather than the record of the book.

Export and lock-in

There is a route, and it is metered. The Pricing and Services Guide lists a File Copies Administration fee — a per-title charge “for delivery of files held by Lightning Source back to publisher”, limited to five ISBNs or SKUs a year. So a publisher can get print files back, one title at a time, for a fee, and no faster than five a year. Nothing in the agreement or the guide describes a bulk export, and sales data leaves only as the monthly compensation statements.

Change history

1. 1 February 2026

   Market access fee raised to 1.875%

   The market access fee, charged on every distributed sale, rose from 1.5% to 1.875% of local list price. On a $10 book that moves the deduction from 15 to 18.75 cents. The fee has changed form as well as size over the years: an annual per-title charge, then waived, then a percentage of list from 2023, charged at 1% before this and one earlier increase.

2. 1 February 2026

   Revision fee free window retied to eproof approval

   Revisions were free within 60 days of a title’s first production date. They are now unlimited and free until the eproof is approved, with the $25 fee applying after that point.