How Kendall Ryan Became a Bestselling Kobo Author

 

By Kendall Ryan

KWL Senior Manager Christine Munroe met author Kendall Ryan at a conference in 2016. She’d noticed Kendall was steadily increasing her Kobo sales, and moving up the ranks of our bestselling authors as she published more books. Fast-forward to fall of 2017, and Kendall is one of our top sellers. We asked her to share some tips on how she grew her Kobo sales.

From a retailer perspective, Kendall brings a lot to the table. She has a lot of great books to promote, and publishes new content often. She helps readers find books where they want to buy them by sharing the links for each retailer on her website and social media. And best of all, she is really nice to work with. At the end of the day, we are all trying to work together towards the same goals, and it can make a big difference when you have a positive relationship.

Here’s the great advice Kendall had to share on how to sell more books with KWL:

A few weeks ago I had a conference call with Christine from the fabulous Kobo Writing Life team. She was updating me on some exciting opportunities that Kobo was working on, and she told me an interesting fact that made my head spin. She told me that I was one of the bestselling authors on Kobo. I was amazed!

I wanted to pass along a few of the things I do at Kobo, specifically, that I believe have helped me to driving success on the platform.

Set up long pre-orders!

I work ahead quite a bit in planning out my year, and so I’m able to decide on my title and release dates. Once I do, I post my pre-orders to Kobo. Occasionally I won’t be ready to reveal my cover or synopsis, so I will use a temporary one that basically says ‘Coming Soon’. But I think having a link to direct readers to and letting those pre-orders accumulate little by little helps.

Watch your international prices and round out the numbers

Since Kobo is mostly an international site, make sure your pricing is not 5.13 CAD, but instead $4.99, etc. Sometimes you’ll have to manually change them. The clean pricing makes the title more appealing to buyers.

Apply for promotions in the Promotions Tab!

I browse the promotion opportunities monthly and generally apply for one or two if I can find something that matches. I’m a big believer in “going wide” and having your books for sale in as many formats and at as many venues as possible. The first step is having your books listed, and then you have to capitalize on that particular retailer—by researching promotion opportunities that exist.  And I love that Kobo lists their promotions and lets you apply for inclusion. (Please note that the promotions tab is still in beta and only available for English-language books. Ask us if you’d like to get access on your dashboard!)

Those are a few of my best tips. I would love to hear your thoughts on social media. You can find me at:

www.twitter.com/kendallryan1

www.facebook.com/kendallryanbooks

www.kendallryanbooks.com

---

A New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USA Today bestselling author of more than two dozen titles, Kendall Ryan has sold over 2 million books and her books have been translated into several languages in countries around the world. Her books have also appeared on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists more than three dozen times. She lives in Texas with her husband and two sons.