OLD POST ALERT! This is an older post and although you might find some useful tips, any technical or publishing information is likely to be out of date. Please click on Start Here on the menu bar above to find links to my most useful articles, videos and podcast. Thanks and happy writing! – Joanna Penn
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We're lucky to have more than one option to distribute and sell our books globally as self-published authors, and today I'm focusing on Kobo.
In the intro, I talk about the launch party for Deadly Dozen (valid until March 8), 12 mystery/thrillers for just 99c (or equivalent). Plus, the royalty change at ACX and updates on my own writing.
Mark Lefebvre is Director of Self Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo. He also writes horror and dark humor under Mark Leslie.
- How Kobo differentiates itself by being a collaborative partner with leading booksellers around the world. Kobo Writing Life was the first to offer payment in the author's currency, which Amazon KDP then picked up. It's great to have a comparison service, a challenger to keep everyone honest!
- We also discuss the scheduling of promotions which you can do on Kobo, and can help you get visibility, as well as making sure the promotions start on time. It's not dependent on being exclusive, and you can be free on Kobo at any time. [I use free on Kobo to get Amazon to price-match for permafree]. The Kobo Writing Life team mine the scheduled promos for gems and great deals for customers.
What do the Kobo merchandising team look for?
- Obviously you need the best book you can write, plus a book cover that is aimed at your target audience. It's
J.F.Penn with Mark Lefebvre at the Kobo booth, London Book Fair 2013 also important to think of the perspective of the booksellers' curation process. Kobo is a bookseller and will make more money on higher priced products, or on pleasing customers with deep discounts. Mark also mentions the networking potential of being a ‘real person,' so definitely say hi to the Kobo Writing Life team at conferences.
- We talk about pricing options e.g. high prices for full length + a free book to pull in readers. Mark talks about his own experience as an author with Bumps in the Night, a ‘digital chap book.‘ Plus, how Kobo analyze data with open rates from free, as well as finish rates. I ask Mark for an ebook similar to Mark Coker's Ebook publishing success for Kobo specifically based on the data they have found.
- Kobo Next is a list of new authors and new books for people to discover. The authors and books that make it there are handpicked, and are proposed to merchandising teams.
Kobo News: Sony, new CEO & global expansion
- Sony have recently left the ebook market, handing their customers over the Kobo. We talk about what that means for readers, as well as for authors. We talk about our frustration with NookPress in that it is STILL not open to non-US authors.
- I also ask Mark about the change of CEO from Canadian, Mike Serbinis, to Japanese, Takahito Aiki. Kobo is owned by Rakuten, a Japanese ecommerce company, and has some huge global plans. [I'm very excited about this as Kobo does well in territories that Amazon isn't focused on yet. The East will be very interesting!]
- We talk about the potential for global growth in 2014-2015, as well as translation deals, for example, what Kobo are doing with Bella Andre/Lucy Kevin. Plus, pricing by different territories, critical to seeing update in other economies.
On balancing two author brands
- Mark balances two roles – at Kobo Writing Life, but also as a fiction author. I shared my own views on this recently.
If you're not on Kobo yet, check out KoboWritingLife.com , which also has a blog and podcast for authors. [I'm on the next episode!]
You can find Mark on twitter @MarkLeslie and his fiction blog here.
Great post, Joanna. I don’t mention this often enough, but your posts are the bedrock of the indie movement. Once again you’ve picked a great topic and the perfect guest. Thanks for all you do!
Peace, Seeley
Thanks Seeley – I appreciate that 🙂 We are stronger together, for sure.
Amazon now seem to be taking a very dim view if you price books lower elsewhere. I recently had a stressful experience when Smashwords lowered a price on one of my books without my consent. (They converted pounds to dollars). Amazon lowered the price of my book, but they also wrote telling me that I was in breach of contract and that they would unpublish my book if I didn’t take steps to remedy the matter within 5 days. Smashword reacted quickly but had no control over how quickly their partners would react. The issue was resolved, but I wouldn’t recommend pricing lower on a different site. You may put your main source of income in jeopardy.
This is why I pulled off Smashwords, BookBaby and Draft2Digital. You have to price in USD which will mean your GBP prices are always lower, not to mention Indian Rupees and other currencies in countries where the economy for books is very different. I hope this US centric view of the world will change over time – but in the meantime, I recommend going direct to publishers where you can.
While I love that you can offer promotions on KOBO to discount your book I find it very frustrating that KOBO doesn’t offer any opportunity for readers to find those promotions easily. Why don’t you create a category-Free Books and then a sub-categories by genre? That way readers looking for deals could find the author’s book.
I listed one of my book for free on KOBO this morning hoping to spur sales of another book. I also did this on AllRomance who makes it easy to search for free books. I have had many downloads from AllRomance all ready but zero on KOBO.
AllRomance gives Indie authors many opportunities to participate in promotions to help sell books. I inquired to Writing Life if I could participate in KOBO promotions and I was told that KOBO promotional opportunities weren’t available to indie authors. When I deal with the KOBO Writing Life team I fee like a second class citizen.
Is there any way, other than lowering the price, to get your books more noticed on KOBO, or more specifically to promote or market your book on KOBO? I didn’t do Kindle Select because I wanted to try KOBO too, but have friends who say they never sold one book on KOBO.
Until recently, my book, The Physics and Philosophy of the Bible, was on sale on line through Kobo. I would like to re-establish. Can you help me? I only want the paperback version sold through Kobo. I DO NOT WANT THE E-BOOK VERSION SOLD BY KOBO. I thank you so much for any consideration. James Frederick Ivey, MD
I am afraid I might have written my comment in the wrong place. James Ivey
Hi James, if you want to take your book off Kobo, you need to contact them. I can’t help with that.
Hello all,
I hear good things about Kobo from Joanna, and now that my KDP Select has expired, I’m eager to try it. I’ve tried to upload two eBooks (ePub format) and neither one will go through. One is 239 KB and one is 256 KB, but Kobo’s system keeps booting them and saying they are too big. One is a new book and the other is already live in ePub format on Nook Press so there shouldnt be a problem with the ePub formatting. I’ve tried contacting Kobo and I’m not getting any answers and I’ve also contacted my formatter and asked on Kboards and nobody seems to have any idea.
Does anyone know how to help?
Thanks!
Linda Fausnet