A Guide to Selling Books on Kobo

We talk a lot about selling books on Amazon, and while Amazon might be the first place you think about when it comes to publishing and selling your book, Kobo is not one to ignore. If you're wondering how to sell your ebook on Kobo, then this video is for you. Hi, I'm Julie the Book Broad, founder of the Simply Amazing Author Services team Book Launchers. We help you take your idea from concept to copies in readers hands. And those hands might be holding an ebook reader that is not a Kindle device. Move over Kindle. Kobo rolled out a ton of exciting developments within the last year and readers of ebooks everywhere are taking notice. And if you want a cool platform that really supports authors, take notice too. In case Kobo is new to you, here's a quick rundown to catch you up. Kobo is originally a Canadian based retailer of ebooks, e readers and audiobooks that launched in 2009 and is available in over 200 countries. It's headquartered in Toronto, Ontario. As a side note, I lived in Toronto for five years and I did my MBA at York University, riding the good old TTC all the way out there. So whenever I talk about Toronto, I get this warm place in my heart. Except for when I think about that bus ride. Anyway, Kobo is now a subsidiary of the Japanese e commerce conglomerate Rakuten. But Kobo is the second largest ebook retailer in the world and the biggest global competitor to Amazon in the ebook market. And what's really cool is they seem to be a genuinely great company. They're often praised for their stellar customer service, and they even helped provide over 20 million free books to readers stuck at home during the pandemic. Their mission isn't just reader focused. Kobo offers some awesome opportunities for authors through their free self publishing platform. Kobo Writing Life I know it might be scary to think about branching away from Amazon and widening your book. Widening your book distribution. It's your book distribution. It says description in my brain. All right, I know it might be a little scary to think about, but branching out from Amazon and widening your book distribution with Kobo could kick your sales up to the next level before your book even launches. I'm talking about pre sales. I've talked all about that precious pre sale launch period, pre sale rankings, and how preorders benefit your book in the long term. And I'll hook you up with a video at the end on presale. But before you go and watch that, do say hello in the comments after you watch this video because video creation is way more fun and rewarding when you have an active audience. Plus when you comment the day a video is released, you'll be entered to win some fabulous book launcher swag and you can become a YouTube bestie. It's an elite group of awesome authors. See all these wonderful people that you'll be joining now Kobo makes setting up your book for pre order very simple. You simply make a Kobo Writing Life account, log in, click Ebooks, and from there you'll head to create new ebook where you'll input your metadata, add your description, and upload your cover. You'll also want to hop on over to edit categories on that same page and select up to three categories for your book within that Kobo library. Need some category research and selection tips? I got you covered on that too. I'll link to that video at the end. Once all of that is squared away, you can upload your content file in a doc, docx, odt, epub, or MOBI format. Make sure to select the right release date and voila. Just like that. Your ebook will be available to to purchase on Kobo.com within 24 to 72 hours. Even if your book isn't ready in terms of final files, you can still set it up for pre order. Simply upload a placeholder file that you can later replace. Once that final version is ready, customers can take a sneak peek and preview the first 5% of an eBook. So use this to your advantage when creating your placeholder file. Include the title, page, copyright, and if it's ready, a chapter or two. It also helps include a short note introducing yourself to the reader, letting them know your book is being finalized but available for pre order and share your social media or other ways they can connect with you. In the meantime, Kobo also gives you full control over your pricing and availability. Don't you just love control? Hear that Audible? We authors like to control our pricing. Audible might not be listening to me in this very moment, but I'm going to keep saying it because it drives me crazy that I can't control the pricing on Audible. But Kobo's pricing tool helps you set your perfect price for over 16 currencies in 200 countries. You can choose where you'd like your book to be available for sale and optimize the pricing for each individual territory. And if you want to reach readers in libraries, over 30,000 libraries. In fact, KWL gives you the power to distribute directly to them with overdrive, a library marketplace Want to hear the best part about pre sale on Kobo, Though? I'LL tell you, but first hit that thumbs up button. Done. Okay, cool. On Kobo, every pre order sale has twice the effect on ranking as a post launch sale. Yep, you heard me right. A pre order on Kobo counts twice towards your book's rankings compared to a regular sale. You don't get paid twice, but you do get 2x ranked ranking works the same way across most retailers. More sales means a higher ranking for your book, and a higher ranking means more customers browsing for their next read will be shown your book's listing. Every pre order on Kobo essentially doubles your increase in visibility and discoverability. That's an invaluable extra boost for your presale strategy that Amazon doesn't offer, and a perk that keeps on giving. Once launch day rolls around, give yourself enough time in presale to really take advantage of those doubled pre order benefits. The longer you have your book available for presale and pair it with some strong promotion, the more sales you can accumulate and the higher your book can climb within its category come launch day. This matters even more with Kobo because Kobo uses humans to curate some of their lists, not an algorithm. So plan for enough time to give your book a chance to be considered for curations by the Kobo team. Because they have spotlights, carousels and feature pages, Kobo's curators often highlight the top selling pre orders on their featured promotional lists, but they craft those anywhere from six to 12 weeks before they publish. So if you want to snag a spot, plan ahead when it comes to your presale now. The perks don't stop after pre launch. After launch day, you can keep those sales going with Kobo's promotional opportunities available through your cable KWL dashboard. It's a new feature and still in beta mode, but the process is just as simple as the rest of KWL's tools. Head over to your promotions tab on your dashboard and check out the current on site sales and email promotions offered, such as daily deals, discounts, price drops, category features, and free ebook promotions. When you spot an opportunity you'd like to apply for, just click on which of your books you'd want featured, input your price for the sale and submit. It's that easy to apply. Kobo's merchandising team will check out your application and let you know if they've approved the title for the promotion that you've selected. There's more magic to be discovered within your KWL dashboard, by the way. You can track your sales in real time with a variety of useful analytics like top titles, top selling regions, daily activity, and even free downloads. You never have to wonder or struggle to see how your book is performing. All the info you need is right there, ready to help you better optimize your marketing decision making. Move over Kindle. Kobo is crushing it as far as making authors lives better. Now as I mentioned, if you're working on your pre sale strategy right now, this video is the one you need to watch. And if you're struggling with category research and selection, I actually have a few videos for you, so I'll tuck two in here for you. There's lots of viewing fun in your future, so go ahead. Make sure you comment on each of them and I promise to reply now. Go ahead, test me on it. I'm waiting.