One of the questions most commonly posted to us by authors is: “when exactly should I publish my eBook?”
We see authors publishing on every day of the week—some on Mondays, others on Wednesdays, to Thursdays and even Fridays. But do we have a preferred release day? Short answer: yes.
While there currently is no commonly accepted global release date for books and eBooks, traditionally they are published 
on Tuesdays in North America and Thursdays in Europe.
We encourage KWL authors to start adopting a Tuesday release date when launching new releases globally.
This is because in North America, we merchandise our storefront on Tuesdays with new releases, and also send out our New Releases email to our customers. We tend not to include pre-orders in these emails and lists—so titles releasing even one day later are left out of these lists and emails.
While our storefronts are updated and emails are sent out on Thursdays in Europe, having your titles published two days earlier will not affect your chances of being merchandised in Europe. Publishing on a Tuesday is your very best bet to be promoted globally to Kobo customers.
All that said, what day of the week you publish on is ultimately up to you—the freedom of making your own choices is what makes self-publishing so great, after all.
I already opt for Tuesday fro various reasons, but this is great to know!
Just the info I needed at the right time. Thank you Kobo.
Sometimes it takes a day for books to go live. Maybe publish late Monday night?
It can take 24-72 hours for a book to be published on our site, but generally we find that titles are published within 24 hours.
In order to ensure a Tuesday release, would you advise uploading as a preorder on, say, Sunday, and choosing Tuesday as the release date? Or would being a preorder *at all* eliminate the book from potentially being included in your merchandizing efforts?
We’d recommend having the pre-order available as soon as possible with the publication date on a Tuesday.
To my understanding, publishers have historically released on Tuesdays in order to factor maximum sales numbers for the New York Times and USA Today Bestseller lists.
Thank you-I did not know these things-Author Brenda Winters
Woops! I blew it. I just published my book The White Limousine this morning (Saturday) Does this mean that it will miss being included in the new release list that comes out on Tuesday?