Sell More on Kobo with Promotions

NOTE: This piece originally appeared on StoryShopUni.

Looking to sell more titles on Kobo? Then you should be taking advantage of Kobo Writing Life’s Promotions Tool! This easy to use tool is built into your Kobo Writing Life dashboard and gives you the opportunity to submit titles directly to the KWL merchandisers for promotional opportunities. 

The tab lists all the current promotional opportunities and lets you select applicable books from your library to apply to them. Simply click on a title, input your prices for the sale, and then submit! Our merchandising team will approve or decline the title for the promotion. Don’t be dismayed if your book isn’t accepted. Competition is fierce for promo spots and it’s best to look at it this way – the worst-case scenario is that you’re putting your book in front of the right people.

Please note that at this time, the promotions tool is only available for English-language titles.

How it Works

Due to the high demand for promotional space, most of the promotions will include some sort of charge. This helps to ensure that only authors who are serious about the business of writing participate. There are two participation cost options: an additional percentage of your royalties, or a flat fee.

Flat Fee

The flat fee option is pretty self-explanatory. We send you a link which you can follow to pay for your feature spot.

Percentage Sale by Promo Code

If you choose to submit your title to this type of sale, Kobo customers will be able to purchase your title at a discount by using a publisher-supported promo code. You as the publisher are supporting this sale, and you will be paying for this discount – but you won’t pay for it up front. 

The cost of participating in these promotions is 10% in additional royalties retained by Kobo as outlined in the KWL dashboard. Additionally, the cost of the promo code will be deducted from this reduced royalty rate. 

Which Promotional Option is Best for Me?

There are several different promotional opportunities available and they get updated weekly. If you keep an eye on the promotion tab on a regular basis, you’ll find the promotion that suits your book and your marketing plan.

Daily Deal & Double Daily Deal

We are excited to offer KWL authors the opportunity to apply for the coveted Daily Deal and Double Daily Deal spots on our homepage. The Daily Deal is featured prominently on Kobo’s homepage and is often also featured in e-mails and other banners on site. 

As you might guess, these spots feature deals for our customers. To be eligible, your book must be discounted by at least 50% off of its regular price. 

Free

Free is the most-searched term on the Kobo website. This feature allows your free book to be spot lit as an editor’s pick on the free page, the only place on the Kobo website where free books are advertised.

Free promotions can be a great way to add an additional boost to a BookBub or free-first-in-series. Our authors report a high read-through rate on series that feature the first book as free. We also have an Editor’s Pick selection each week which further spotlights free titles. 

Buy More Save More

There are a number of Buy More Save More promotions available for participation. For example, a Buy 2 Get 1 Free sale (3 eBooks for the price of 2).

When a customer buys 3 books in this sale (let’s pretend one of these books is yours), the cheapest title is discounted by 100%. As you are supporting this sale you will be paying for this discount, but you won’t pay for it up front. During the month following the promotion you will receive your monthly sales report, and those titles that were purchased during the sale will have a reduced royalty rate. The discount is divided amongst all eBooks purchased at one time, so no one eBook takes the penalty as a “free” book. 

Price Drop Sales

We run a variety of different price drop sales. These are sometimes geo-specific – UK price drop sale that requires your GBP price to be reduced. They can be also seasonal – Canada Day price drop sale that requires a reduction in your CAD price. 

This is the reason you should be keeping an eye on our promotions tab on a regular basis. You never know what opportunities we have coming up! 

Promo Code Sales

If you choose to submit your title to this type of sale, Kobo customers will be able to purchase your title at a discount by using a publisher-supported promo code. This can be a good option available if you don’t want to worry about pesky price matching.

As with our price drop sales, we have promo code sales for a variety of reasons and recommend keeping an eye on the tab on the regular.

Kobo Writing Life is a global self-publishing platform, available all over the world and in six languages. For the moment, this tool isn’t automatically enabled on all accounts as it’s just available for English language books. If you don’t see the promo tab in your account, send us a quick email at writinglife@kobo.com and KWL’s dedicated author care team will enable this for you.

If you’d like more details on this great tool, please visit our Help Centre. We also have a handy tutorial video available.