KWL Director, Mark Lefebvre was recently a guest on Lit Up! with Angela Breidenbach on TogiNet Radio.
In the interview, Mark talks a bit about his own non-fiction writing (he writes non-fiction paranormal books for Toronto publisher Dundurn Press), where they explore history, local lore and ghost stories, and then explains a bit about self-publishing, Kobo and Kobo Writing Life.
(The good stuff, for those wanting to skip Mark’s personal book info and get right to the info on Kobo, starts at about 15:00 minutes in)
Some of the things that Mark talks about are the origins of Kobo (original company name, the company’s philosophy) . . .
. . . the ease of the publishing process and the sexy author dashboard . . .
. . . not to mention the multitude of reading options, including two beautiful waterproof Kobo readers (Aura ONE and Aura H20) . . .
. . . as well as how Kobo partners with indie bookstores in the US, allowing local customers to buy eBooks while still supporting their favorite local bookstore (see indiebound.org/ebooks for more info), strategies on setting global pricing and other useful information and tips for authors.
You can listen to the podcast online via any of the following links or search for it to download and listen to the podcast via places such as iTunes via the RSS Feed.
https://toginet.com/shows/litup/
https://toginet.com/podcasts/litup/?s=litup
Join Angela Breidenbach, bestselling author, weekly on Lit Up talk radio. Satisfy your curiosity to be the fly on the wall as expert guests discuss and explore the literary world from books to movies, reviews and interviews in the creative realm, and Angela picks the brains of entertainment and publishing experts to share how you can build a lucrative creative career or simply figure out what makes talented creatives tick.
Lighting up the literary world with book reviews, in-depth expert interviews, and ideas to design a lucrative creative career. Listen weekly and expand your imagination to enhance your life – Always family-friendly, always good for your heart.
Discover more about Angela Breidenbach, and her books, at http://AngelaBreidenbach.com
Connect with Angela Breidenbach on Facebook/Instagram/Pinterest/Twitter: @AngBreidenbach
Reblogged this on Chris The Story Reading Ape's Blog.
I hate leaving negative remarks, but I have had my book listed with Kobo for over six months and not sold one copy. I’ve listed them on social media as one of the available book stores. They are linked on my blog site. I contacted them for help with any marketing program they might have and got no reply. Any idea would be appreciated.
You’re not alone, Chuck. Most books published never sell. That goes for both self-published books and traditionally published books. In physical bookstores, about 60% of the titles that get put on shelves get pulled off and returned 6 to 9 months later, unsold. In online/digital/ebook, there are thousands of titles that sit for months and never sell.
Not telling you this to be all gloomy, but need you to understand that you’re in really good company with the majority of published authors from all sides of publishing.
But, the key is, what can you do? Some tips that might help appear below:
Before doing so, just to let you know, I just queried the KWL ticketing system and didn’t see any emails that you would have sent to writinglife@kobo.com (a quick check on your name and the email address you use to log in to KWL with – didn’t see anything there) – perhaps you sent your email to some other address?
One thing I immediately noticed about your book is that you have only entered a USD price. $4.99 USD. This makes your CAD price $6.65 based on currency conversion. Try to put yourself in a customer’s shoes and look at how the price doesn’t appear “normal” — ie, doesn’t end in .99. An easy update, since it plays to customer purchase psychology, would be rounding your CAD price up to $6.99 CAD (since that’s likely what the customer is subconsciously doing anyway). Since AUD and NZD are similar in terms of conversion, using $6.99 and $6.99 NZD would be advisable too.
Link to the book’s Canadian view:
https://www.kobo.com/ca/en/ebook/one-month-20-days-and-a-wake-up
Since Kobo has a far better reach outside the US (typically about 75% of KWL author sales come from Canada and Australia, at least based on full KWL 2016 stats we have), you’d be well advised to optimize your price in those currencies at the very least. (Ideally, in CAD, AUD, NZD, GBP and EUR)
For any books you publish, when editing your price, you can see what the estimated converted price will be in that foreign currency based on automated exchange rate info, OR, when the book is live, you can click on the little flag at the top of Kobo’s web page and change the country view. (There’s an article about that on our blog here: https://kobowritinglife.com/2017/01/13/a-global-view-on-kobo/)
Similarly, we offer advise on optimizing your books globally with that and a number of similar articles here:
https://kobowritinglife.com/?s=global+pricing
You can find other DIY online help/resources and tips in our online Community
https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
Specifically, these might be helpful for you.
https://kobowritinglife.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/categories/115001170787-Marketing-Promotion
Hope you find this information helpful, Chuck.
But the key thing is to not give up. You worked hard to write the book. You worked hard to publish the book. Sometimes, finding and targeting your book to the right niche audience and waiting for those sales to come in can be the hardest. Creating and publishing is a lot of hard work, but perhaps, as Tom Petty sings, “The waiting is the hardest part” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uMyCa35_mOg)
great reply:) An artist must have the truest faith in self or fortune for what they make has no true monetary value and they need money to eat.