Promoting Your Books (and Career!) Through Multi-Author Boxsets
By Erin Wright In the summer of 2017, I got together with five other Western Romance authors and we decided to put together a boxset…
KWL at RT Booklovers 2018
By Tara Cremin Last month, thousands of romance writers and fans converged for the annual Romantic Times Booklovers Convention. What most people didn’t know upon…
Now is the Time to be the Writer You Want to Be
There has never been a better time to be an independent author. Powerful platforms like Kobo have made it possible for us to write the stories we want to write and put them before a huge audience that, twenty years ago, wouldn’t have been available to us.
How I Became an Author in Retirement
by Michele Sabad We define ourselves in various ways, depending on time, mood, inclination. Many of our identities are stable throughout life. I am a woman.…
Turning a Passion into a Podcast: Adam Croft and Robert Daws—Partners in Crime
There aren’t many jobs in which you can meet up with friends and colleagues for a beer or a coffee and discuss the best way to dispose of a dead body.
5 Ways Travel Writers Earn Money From Their Craft
The most successful travel writers today are not writing for magazines on the newsstand or books on a store shelf.
The Lasso of Truth About Entrepreneurial Publishing
Independently publishing my books gives me freedom and empowers me to pursue my passions, connect with my fans, and create the life I always dreamed of.
Kobo Writing Life Podcast – Episode 106 – Maxwell Alexander Drake
In this episode, Chrissy Munroe interviews award-winning author and creative writing instructor Maxwell Alexander Drake.
The 5 Traits That All Successful Authors Share
Great authors are seldom born; instead they’re moulded, sculpted and polished over time.
Marie Force: Building a Self-Publishing Empire
My life was changed forever by self-publishing, and I’ll always be thankful for the opportunity to take control of my career.
Indie Publishing: Making Time and Everything Else Your Friend
For me, becoming an independent publisher (nice ring, right?) has given me back the happiness and joy I used to receive from writing.
10 Things Top Kobo Authors Have in Common
Christine will be hosting a free Bublish webinar on Wednesday, March 21 to talk about what’s new and exciting at KWL and what’s driving book sales at Kobo today.
Exclusive Preview of Holly Evans’ Latest Book!
The Kobo Writing Life blog is getting the first peek at Holly Evans’ newest title, Blood of The Wolf, available for preorder now only on Kobo.
The Queer Eye: LGBT+ Voices in Fiction
When I’m asked why on earth I write gay and bi protagonists, the answer’s really very simple. I’m bi, I grew up around a lot of LGBT+ people, and the majority of my close circle are LGBT+, so I’m doing what writers are told to do again and again—I’m writing what I know.
Not Taboo Anymore: The Rise of Self-Publishing in the Netherlands
The idea of the indie movement is slowly spreading in the Netherlands and I personally think that our 17th century forefathers would be proud to see that their adventurous and entrepreneurial spirit is still alive and well.
Interview with Cecile Bertod (AKA Celia Hayes)
Sandra Lonchamp, our European Coordinator, interviews Italian KWL superstar Cecile Bertod.
What Makes A Good Author Bio?
Like yodelling on a mountaintop, when I say the words ‘author bio’ I can hear the collective author groan echo from every corner of the globe. Like eating your vegetables or doing your taxes, writing your author bio is unfortunately an inescapable part of literary life.
Read a Book, Help Find a Cure
KWL author Terry Odell is splitting her February royalties for her novel “Deadly Engagement” with the National Multiple Sclerosis Society.
From Chaos to Success: My First Twelve Months as an Indie.
Valentine’s Day celebrates love. For me, it also celebrates my first twelve months as an indie author. Some fifteen years after writing the first draft…
How to Reach Readers on Kobo
By C.J. Archer C.J. first started publishing independently in 2011 and was an immediate success—making enough to become a full-time author within her first year.…
Go Wide, Go Big—Go For It!
KWL is a team of 7 strong women running a major pillar of Kobo’s content catalogue. We LOVE hearing stories about how self-publishing empowers female writers to build booming independent publishing businesses, making enough money through writing to quit their day jobs, and even hire their partners, family members, or friends to support them. Here Julia Kent shares her tips for success.
Renowned KWL author K.L. Slater shares tips for twisty tales
Everybody loves a twist, right?
A great twist is an enticing prospect for many readers in choosing their next read and it is my view, this is never more important than in the psychological thriller.
5 Ways to Make Your Editor Think You are Awesome
By Lisa Lepki As the Editor of ProWritingAid’s blog, I am constantly reading submissions from writers, and few things irk me more than common technical gaffes…
An Editor Is Your Novel’s Best Friend
By Carrie D. Miller If you’ve taken the self-published route, you have a little more than a hint of control-freak in you. I know I do.…
How Going Wide Helped Me Quit My Day Job
by Tracy Cooper-Posey Here’s a question for you: Why did you get into indie publishing?
Single-Focus Marketing (or How to Write Better Email Newsletters)
We all want to increase our reader engagement, right? More social media comments, more newsletter opens, more purchases. But did you know that offering more choices might actual result in less action from your readers?
Free Download Tracker – fixed!
Dear authors, you have been very patient with us. Our free download tracker has been broken for too long, and the behind-the-scenes work towards getting it…
Multi-Layered Readers and How to Reach Them
When I thought about my readers, I lumped them all into one huge bucket. When I sent an email newsletter to my 500 readers, I couldn’t understand why some didn’t open and others didn’t click. . .As an indie author, identifying your readers offers opportunity to brainstorm new ways to connect with her.
Five things I learned putting together bundles at Bundle Rabbit
By Barbara G. Tarn Have you heard this great marketing tip? Include your book in a multi-author bundle, so that readers can cross-pollinate among various authors.…
Tips and Tools to Help You Complete NaNoWriMo (or any writing project)
You’re down to the wire. The deadline for NaNoWriMo (or another writing project) looms on the horizon. But you’re behind. You’re afraid you’re not going to make it. You simply don’t have enough time to write the requisite number of words at your typical writing pace. Or the words just won’t come. Or both. What’s a writer to do?
Once Upon A Time . . . Retelling Classic Fairytales
Fairytales are stories that never die. Storytellers breathe new life in them, but the essential tale is the same, because we love those stories so much.
Be A Smart Indie
If you’ve been an independent author for any length of time, you know the market has grown more competitive. So how can your books stand out in such a crowded marketplace?
Using Triggers to Poke at a Character’s Emotional Wound
When it comes to acknowledging what hurts us, the old saying, Deny, deny, deny! comes to mind. It’s no different with our characters, and in both cases, refusing to deal with wounding events carries a steep price.
Thank you, Mark
After six years at Kobo, Mark Lefebvre is leaving his position as Director of Kobo Writing Life in order to pursue other dreams. Mark built KWL…
Fighting the Demon of Self-Doubt
By Eve Langlais When Kobo approached me for an article I jumped on it because how cool is that, to be asked to write something to…
The Five Stages Of Revising Your Novel
You’ve finished a first draft of your novel. Now what?
Learn to love Microsoft Word
By Joan Frantschuk Have you ever screamed at Word because it just will not cooperate? Word is a writer’s best tool, best resource, best friend. Writing a…
5 Habits of the World’s Most Successful Writers
by Justin Osborn Every writer dreams about the moment when their work hits the bestseller list. We wish for the perseverance and inspiration to churn out…
Multi-Author Bundles: Dos and Don’ts
by Donna Fasano Multi-author anthologies require a lot of hard work. However, if 100% of the participating authors pull together to make the boxed set a…
Find your next read and promote your books with Helloreads
How do you decide what you’re reading next? Checking various book lists? Asking friends? Browsing endlessly through the bottomless internet? Helloreads has built one platform to…
How My Self-Published Book Sold 180,000 Copies And Nearly Doubled My Revenue
[This is an abbreviated excerpt of a longer article written by Michael Bungay Stanier on GrowthLab.com. There are links within this excerpt that link to the…
Are you a KWL Affiliate yet?
You can earn more with Kobo Writing Life’s Author Affiliate program! This program is free to join, easy to sign-up, and requires no technical knowledge. It’s…
Supporting The Survival Instinct
By Janie Crouch I write romantic suspense. Best job in the world. In every book I write there comes a moment when the main characters have…
Kobo Writing Life Gets Lit Up!
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…
First-time Ever Writing Retreat in France
Cruising Writers went to France for the first time, for an in-land retreat at Château Les Carrasses in Languedoc region. For one whole week, a crew…
TCK Publishing Podcast Interview with Kobo Writing Life’s Mark Lefebvre
Tom Corson-Knowles, Founder of TCK Publishing, recently interviewed KWL Director Mark Lefebvre on the TCK Publishing Podcast. In the interview, Tom and Mark discuss a wide…
Top 25 Bestselling KWL Titles from 2016
Self-Published titles at Kobo represent nearly 1 in every 4 books sold in the English language for 2016. To spotlight some of the highest selling titles…
Ebook Quality Assurance: The last 20% is the most important
by Joshua Tallent You’ve done it! You finally finished the last sentence of your book. Maybe it was the novel you wrote for NANOWRIMO (my 12-year-old…
Prose Pointers
by Pam McCutcheon There’s a lot of misunderstanding as to the proper usage of some words in the English language, and many mistakes even make it…
The Author Website: Not Just a Digital Business Card
by Chris Mandeville An “official author website” is, like a business card, a tool for providing customers (readers) with information about you. But unlike a…