Setting The Price On a New Book
You will first set the price of your book starting with your default currency. If you set a list price of $2.99 USD or more you will earn maximum royalties of 70%.
Once you enter the price in your default currency, we will automatically convert to all of our other available currencies using recent default exchange rates stored in our system.
However, you have the ability to over-write any of the converted prices. And we do believe it’s in your best interest to optimize your prices in as many global markets as possible to maximize your revenue.
When you click into a field in order to set a custom price, if there is an advised protocol for pricing that we are aware of, the pop-up screen will make an appropriate suggestion. In the example below, since the default exchange rate was $6.19 AUD, the system is recommending rounding up to $6.99 AUD, which is a more natural looking price for that particular territory.
If you have set custom prices, you can see which currencies you have set custom prices for (Custom prices) and which ones are automatically converted (Converted prices) based on recent Bank of Canada exchange rates.
Viewing a Published Book’s Prices
When viewing a published book prices, only the relevant information is displayed: Your default currency list price is as well as any of currencies you have explicitly set.
If you click on View/Edit Prices, it’ll bring you to the editing screen so you can see both your Current Prices as well as the Your Custom Prices.
If you wish to change your prices immediately, rather than schedule a price change for a future date, simply click on Edit Prices and make your price changes as required, then click on Save.
Scheduling A Sale or Future Price Change
You can set up either a permanent price change or a temporary sale price for a future date using the SCHEDULED PRICE CHANGES section.
To begin, select one of the following:
- To schedule a sale, where your regular price drops for a limited time and then returns back to the normal/regular price, click on Schedule a sale.
- To schedule a permanent price change, where you’ll be changing your regular price from that date forward, click on Schedule a price change.
Scheduling a Sale
When scheduling a sale, you’ll be asked to provide both a start date as well as an end date for your sale.
The next step will be Adding in any currencies you’d like included in the sale:
You can choose one or more currencies to control or choose to control all currencies for the sale.
Viewing a Sale
When a sale price is active in the system, the system will notify you via a special notification at the top of your CURRENT PRICES view
The Your Sale Prices section will explicitly call out which currencies you have set special prices for. This section is NOT shown if a book is currently not on sale.
You will always be able to see dates on which you have set price changes via the Scheduled Price Changes widget.
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Ok. Well.
Sorry to be confused, but do I need to re-price all my books to get them into the new countries? I tried that with one book and it only shows the US.
No, you don’t. It will auto-convert these currencies for you as we’ve always been doing. The difference is now that you have the option to directly change them to best optimise your global prices.
This is awesome! And you made it so easy! Thanks, Kobo Writing Life! You guys rock! (Yes, I’m using up all the exclamation points that are in my head that my editor won’t let me put in my books! Haha!! You don’t mind, right?) 😀
Thanks for this information. It’s clear and concise. 🙂
The way that Kobo converts tax-exclusive US prices to currencies for foreign countries where there is VAT results in a VAT-inclusive price that is artificially low. Since the US price is tax-exclusive and the foreign price is VAT-inclusive, the net effect is that publishers end up paying the VAT for the customer. Only by refusing to allow Kobo to convert the US price and by manually setting their own VAT-inclusive prices that are the US price converted plus the VAT, can US publishers avoid paying the VAT for the customer.
For example, if a publisher’s book is $4.99 in the US, the price in GBP, according to Kobo’s conversion, would be around £4.09. That price, as presented by Kobo to the publisher, is VAT-inclusive. However, VAT in the UK is 20% and so that 20% would be deducted from the £4.09, and Kobo would pay royalties based on £3.27. However, if the publisher manually sets the price at £4.99, Kobo will pay royalties on £3.99, which is much close to the actual US price converted in GBP.
To me, it seems that Kobo could just as easily convert the US price to a VAT-inclusive price that actually reflects both the conversion from US Dollars to the UK price plus the 20% VAT, but it chooses not to. Why not?
Thanks for your thoughts on this, Andrew.
Due to both the complex nature of tax-inclusive territories, and the importance of global territorial pricing, that’s another great reason we’re proud of the tools we have built that support Kobo Writing Life users to be in control of that pricing.
That’s also why we constantly advocate that authors should not rely on anyone’s automated pricing conversion (including ours), as per multiple other posts on this blog regarding the importance of understanding pricing beyond USD: https://kobowritinglife.com/?s=pricing
In answer to the “Why not?” our User Experience and Development teams worked for months on helping us create an easy to use price control that was informative without being too cluttered. That’s why we ensured it’s now easy to identify which currencies are using the default Converted prices and which are Custom controlled prices set by the user as well as an asterisks to denote which currencies reflect tax inclusive.territories.
As a small publisher with limited resources both in terms of time and money, I would welcome a more “cluttered” pricing page that allows the user to set a price, specify that the price is “tax-exclusive,” and which Kobo would then convert and THEN add the applicable VAT in the country where the sale takes place. This would allow small publishers such as myself to take advantage of the valuable service of having Kobo perform the price conversions automatically, a service that is otherwise of no use other than in countries where no VAT applies.
There is NO VAT on books in the UK!!
There is a 20% VAT on eBooks. If you do not factor that into your pricing (i.e., your price must be 20% higher), you are paying the VAT for the customer. http://www.internationalpublishers.org/images/VAT2015.pdf
Where do I list a promo sale from – to? I tried to click on your tables – but it doesn’t let me.
Hi there!
We are having difficulties in scheduling our book price change because you are going to be unavailable from
December 19th to December 29th.
We are planning to have our book for free from 14th to 20th and going to be
on $ 0.99 from 21st to 25th, then precisely $ 1.99 from 26th onwards.
Although our current set price is $ 0.99 and we are able to set the price
change for the 14th – 20th period, but we are unable to set the price
change for the 26th onwards, and you will be unavailable until 29th.
Please advise us regarding the price change matter.
Thank You,
Oh, and it is so hard to reach out for a help in Kobo Writing Life, I emailed like 5-6 times in within 2 weeks and no reply whatsoever.
Hi Alexander – the price scheduling tool only lets you schedule a single price change at a time.