The AmWritingFantasy Podcast: Episode 27 – How to sell books on Kobo (with former Kobo Director Mark Leslie Lefebvre)

It isn't easy to sell books. That's especially true outside of the Amazon eco-system.

I sat down with the former Kobo Director Mark Leslie Lefebvre to pick his brain on how we authors can sell more books on Kobo.

There's some really strong book marketing tips and tricks being shared.

And, here's a link to Mark's podcast: https://starkreflections.ca/ 

New episodes EVERY single Monday.

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Jesper on Twitter: https://twitter.com/SchmidtJesper 

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"Read the full transcript below. (Please note that it's automatically generated and while the AI is super cool, it isn't perfect. There may be misspellings or incorrect words on occasion).

Jesper (0s):
So if you are debating whether or not you should be selling books, exclusives it exclusively on Amazon, or if you should be wide, then I have a special guest on here today to help me to talk about selling books on proper. If you're a fantasy author, then you've come to the right place. My name is Jesper and together with autumn we have together published more than 20 books. And our aim is to help you with your writing and marketing and selling books based on our experience.

Jesper (34s):
So actually today as I was just saying before, I have a special guest on and I'm very, very piece too to have Mark on here to help me because Mark has a very, let's say good insight, especially insights in talking about selling books on Kobo even though he's doing something else today, which I'll let him himself explain in just a second. But uh, thank you very much for, for coming onto amwritingfantasy Mark it's a great pleasure.

Mark (1m 3s):
It's an honor to be here. Thank you so much for inviting me.

Jesper (1m 7s):
So maybe just to make people know a bit about you, maybe you can say a bit about both what you're doing today, but also specifically maybe your prior work in life because it's very relevant in the conversation we're having here.

Mark (1m 20s):
Yeah, of course. So I mean I've been in the book industry since 1992 I started as a bookseller, um, specific to our conversation here. I worked for Kobo am between 2011 2017 and when I was there, uh, I was the director of self-publishing and author relations and I created Kobo writing life, the self publishing platform. So for those who aren't familiar with it, it would be very akin to what, what KDP or Kindle direct publishing is to Kendall and Amazon Kobo writing is to Kobo.

Mark (1m 51s):
It's a published direct platform free. I think it's a lot sexier of course, and a lot more user. And because it was built by an author for other authors. Now I left Kobo at the end of 2017 because I wanted to write full time and do a consulting for publishers and writers. I couldn't keep my hands out of the business because at the end of 2018, I joined a part time role, uh, with draft two digital, which is an aggregator that distributes eBooks and converts them for free to Kobo, to Kindle, to Apple, to nook, to Google to to Lino, to a whole bunch of other platforms as well.

Mark (2m 29s):
So I couldn't not want to build cool things for writers, so I kinda needed to keep my fingers in the, uh, in the, in the muck, so to speak. Uh, and, and, and sort of that's where I am today, doing a combination of writing and basically helping authors. And I really want to help authors sell broadly and sell globally rather than just selling really, really well in the U K and in the U S on Amazon, which is usually what you're getting from that platform.

Jesper (2m 54s):
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. And yeah, and I actually, I use both draft to digital and Kobo. So, um, but, but I do go directly Kobo also is to get into the promotional opportunities that Kobo has for, which I'm sure we're gonna get into quite some more. But, uh, but it's funny because the whole conversation about being by Y versus being exclusive, uh, autumn and I just had a chat about that the other day for our, for our mastermind group. But, um, but for me it's, it's sort of a no brainer. I mean, uh, I don't want to put all my eggs in the Amazon basket for sure.

Jesper (3m 27s):
Um, but the thing is also that then when you take the decision that you want to publish white, then it is harder to get traction on, uh, on why platforms like Kobo it at least that's my perception. The corporate just works a bit differently than Amazon. It's, it's not quite the same machine in that way that that Amazon is. So, yeah. I'm really curious to have some insights and thoughts to hear from you on, on, uh, how do an author get more

Mark (3m 54s):
traction on Kobo? Well, actually, uh, I, I'm glad, I'm glad you mentioned that because I mean, Amazon is the world's biggest bookstore. There's no disputing that. So they have a lot more customers. They have a, you know, 20 years of experience of building their platform as a, as a book platform. So they've done that for a lot longer. And a Kobo is only about 10 years old, for example. And other platforms then be Kobo and Apple and nook, you know, all the other platforms that aren't Amazon. You have to pack a little bit of patience, uh, when it comes to that, because you know, for example, and but again, there are things are changing on Amazon all the time.

Mark (4m 30s):
So, you know, it's pay to play now and you can't just publish a book on Amazon and it'll sell. You have to pay for it. So, uh, with Kobo you can get traction. And so you, you mentioned the am, the promotions tab, uh, which is available if you're publishing direct to Kobo, through Kobo writing life and and it's not automatically available. Once you have your Kobo writing life account, you have to email a writing life, a kobo.com and ask for it and they'll, uh, they'll add it to your account and then you could submit your titles to be considered for various promotional opportunities.

Mark (5m 5s):
And, and they usually have about probably am 15 different promo opportunities on a regular basis. A lot of them are the free page. So if you have a, like a, a free lead generation title, whether it's the first book in series or maybe it's a short story in your universe that ties back to a novel, uh, that you have or a series of novels, you can use that, those are, those you actually have to pay for. Most of the other promos on, uh, Kobo are usually am usually something like the, a a monthly 30% off promo of on science fiction and fantasy titles, for example.

Mark (5m 41s):
And instead of, uh, you're agreeing to allow Kobo to give a coupon code to its best customers who can get your book for 30% off, you do not have to change your price. And so what's critical about that is you don't have to change your price. Meaning Amazon's not going to price match. It's, it's an exclusive coupon for customers to use. So you leave your price normal and the customer gets the code and instead of actually paying for that, you only pay for the books you sell during the promo. So, uh, it's usually about 10%.

Mark (6m 13s):
So let's say your book is just because I'm not good at math, let's just make it a $10 book. It's a 30% off discount so the consumer can get it for $7 and instead of getting the, uh, you know, the regular 70% on that, you would get a 60% am so you make a little bit less. But unlike Amazon ads and other, you know, BookBub's and things like that, you're not out of pocket initially. And, and the one thing I always have to remind authors have is it's cool to pay for ads and then get paid for it.

Mark (6m 44s):
But you have to remember you're getting paid 45 or 90 days later, so your out of pocket with some many and then you get the many a few months later. So it's not like, you know, I made $100 this month and I spent $75. Yeah, I'm $25 a head. Well, no, no, you're $100 in the hole until 45 to 90 days later, depending, like depending on the platform, uh, you know, the year $25 ahead three months later. So, uh, it's important to remember the income and outcome, right, in terms of your expenditures, because sometimes you could be in the right a little bit early on if you haven't budgeted properly.

Jesper (7m 23s):
Yeah. Yeah. But I think at least the promotions that, uh, that are listed on, on Kobo writing life, I mean many of them there they're not like expensive stuff. So, so it, it might be, I dunno, 20, 20, $30, something like that. Four to five, I think for the four, usually the most expensive ones. And they, unless you have a lot of books, I mean they're not gonna accept your putting one book in 15 different ones at the same time anyway. So I mean, and I think that, I mean that is a good thing, you know, that that is not expensive to advertise and Kobo

Mark (7m 54s):
no, it's not and. And so what it sometimes takes on a platform like Kobo is just a little bit of extra lift or kicks with sometimes all it takes is a promo where you're going from selling nothing or maybe you're selling one book a month or one book a week, whatever it is, and then suddenly a doubles your sales or triples your sales. You know what I mean? Going from one book to three, which doesn't seem like a dramatic thing, but it often, it's a long slow build. And I've often told writers on a platform like Kobo, it can take upwards of six months to nine months and then that feeds the self fulfilling prophecy of the Kindle unlimited magic world and exclusive to to am Amazon because a lot of authors will start, you know, Amazon first and then maybe after 90 days they, they try publishing wide but you know, 30 days pass and they're not seeing anything.

Mark (8m 45s):
And then at the end of that 90 day period they, they go back to Amazon exclusivity and and one of the things that I have to caution authors about is every single time you delist books from other platforms like Kobo, you're starting from scratch every single time. Even if you had sales in that period where you were published wide, the minute you delete your book or unless the book, you are immediately going back to zero and you're starting not from where you were before, but you're starting from the beginning because everyone seems to be familiar with the Amazon algorithms and the 30 day cliff and you have to publish lots of books really fast to, to keep that going.

Mark (9m 26s):
Kobo and other retailers have algorithms like that too where you're ranking in your trending in your ratings and things like that are based on customer behavior with interacting with that book and related to all the other books. So Kobo unlike Amazon isn't mostly am algorithm driven. It's driven by a combination of algorithms and manual merchandisers. So not all that different than um, a book seller in a bookshop who would, would take in, you know, a whole bunch of books from different publishers and then decide, okay, what books am I going to put in my front window?

Mark (10m 2s):
What books am I going to put on this display? Now the promotions tab, uh, helps the Kobo writing life team find and curate titles from Kobo writing life from self published authors to get their books onto the end caps and into those window displays along with the big publishers who are constantly trying to pitch their titles to the merchandising team for placement of new releases or special features, et cetera.

Jesper (10m 29s):
At least from my experience, and it probably depends on the type of books and if you're hitting the right promotional option. But from my experience there is quite a difference. You know, some, some of the promotional promotions that I've run sort of almost nothing happened from them and then others of them are quite good at. But it seems it depends on luck on I think what type of books you are promoting and if you're sort of hitting the right promotional category now or whatever you want to call it.

Mark (10m 56s):
Yeah. Yeah. And some of them work, some of them don't. The key is just like with BookBub, right? Anybody apply in you applying, you apply again, you just keep applying, you apply, you try it. I mean, what, what does it cost you? It didn't cost you anything in, in most cases unless it was one of those small, uh, pays for like the free books and you just keep trying because you never know what might hit. Here's the other thing and during election years for example, people don't read as much. So there could also be something going on. It was your book release, the, the, the week that the Avengers end game came out and you and your writing, you know, superhero fiction.

Mark (11m 30s):
Well, not as many people are probably going to be buying books around that time period because they're all going to be excited about that. Or, or you know, game of Thrones, like during the, the, the, the, the, the end of the season people may be, are not buying as many fantasy novels, but after game of throne ends and everyone's feeling like they're missing something, maybe then they're going to be looking for fantasy. And also there's, there's all these other factors that have nothing to do with books and nothing to do with platform that affect the behavior of consumers. And that's why, I mean I often, I often say patience and persistence are two of the key elements that a writer needs in order to, um, have longterm success as, as, as a writer.

Jesper (12m 9s):
The other sort of weapon we have in our hospital, his riders is also am using the feature deal, but the CPMs on where we can certainly talk Kobo readers, but I was just curious because I can, I can for sure, uh, analyze my way to, to the fact that the, the blog largest Kobo audiences probably in Canada. And I would assume that it's quite locked in the U S but, but how is it around, is there any like English speaking territories, other places in the world that are really good targeting options maybe for your Facebook ads and stuff like that?

Mark (12m 45s):
Yeah, yeah. I'm glad you mentioned that. So before, before we am drop talking about BookBub ads specifically is I have, uh, worked with authors over the years who have been able to do BookBub ads for Kobo in both Canada and Australia for full-price books, not for 99 cent books are two 99 bucks, but for the full price, whether it's four 99, five 99, six 99, whatever the price is, and those convert really, really well because, uh, in, and BookBub published a stat, I think it was about six or nine months ago.

Mark (13m 16s):
It was on there on the BookBub blog that showed that 70% of their best customers, because they know who's clicking and who their consumers are, 70% of their most avid readers and buyers buy books at full-price from BookBub ads. Uh, and, and I know from evidence that I've seen from authors, I've worked with that that works really, really well on both a Kobo and on a Apple as well, um, for Canada and Australia as an example. So that's good targeting. But so Canada and Australia are two of the, two of the larger am markets for Kobo.

Mark (13m 52s):
Now, Amazon does dominate the U S so Kobo doesn't have as big a presence in the U S Kobo does things like they partner with the independent booksellers association or the ADA, the American bookseller association, where there's about 600 independent bookstores across the U S that if you go to their website, they're selling eBooks, but they're selling them through Kobo. And Kobo does that as a partnership so that a local consumer could, could purchase an ebook and the local bookstore actually gets a cut of every one of those sales, even though it's entirely powered by Kobo.

Mark (14m 23s):
And I love that kind of collaboration because it allows the bookstore to do what they do best, which is move print books into the community. And a Kobo does what it does best, which is move digital books, audio books, and eBooks into the community without trying to put the bookstore out of business. So it's not the Amazon way of come in and bully their way through the market, like Walmart, Amazon, and just push all the other independent retailers out of the way. But we're collaboratively. And so in Canada where Kobo was born, it's, you know, chapters Indigo, which a chain kind of like Barnes and noble, only really, really successful.

Mark (14m 55s):
And, um, and then in Australia there was a, of course I'm drawing a blank on the name of the, of the major retailer, but there's a major retailer and a couple of other retailers that Kobo has partnered with. So those were markets Kobo got in early and partnered with. Now in the UK, the Kobo is also partnered with, um, wh Smith and, uh, and other retailers in the market so that when you're buying eBooks, um, from wh Smith, you're actually buying them from Kobo there powered by Kobo. And when you go across different countries in Europe, Kobo is really strong even for English language titles.

Mark (15m 30s):
In am markets like the Netherlands and Belgium because they've partnered with bowl and bowl is a major, significant Amazon sized a retailer. And that's a great opportunity for writers cause uh, folks in another lens love a rating as well. Uh, there's also an additional program I should mention that's only available in, uh, through Kobo and ball and the Netherlands, which is called Kobo plus. So think of it like Kindle unlimited, except you don't have to be exclusive to a Kobo. And when you're listing your books in a Kobo plus am, what happens is instead of your book being listed twice, like once on Kobo, on once on ball is listed four times, you're in the regular Allah cart Kobo channel, you're also in the couple of plus channel.

Mark (16m 16s):
And then on ball you're in the Al a carte and then you're in a Kobo plus. So it's almost like doubling your SEO or your visibility of your titles to, to more readers because there are some readers who will buy and then there'll be other readers who say, well, for whatever price a month, I'm just going to read unlimited. And so, um, that's also been a really good market for, uh, for Kobo authors.

Jesper (16m 40s):
Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did try, I have tried, uh, before as well to run some, uh, some Facebook ads specifically to Watsonville and some buildings because, uh, because of the Kobo plus thing, but I didn't, I didn't, I will not able to really make much out of it. Um, but maybe I'm just thinking now that we were talking, maybe it would be worth running the apps and actually mentioning specifically Kobo plus in the, uh, in the ad text itself, which I did not.

Mark (17m 6s):
Yeah. And I would, and I wouldn't even mention Kobo if you're doing it in the Netherlands because Kobo was probably not as well known a brand. A bowl is the brand am.

Jesper (17m 14s):
It's a, B, a L M DOL,

Mark (17m 17s):
DOL. So ball.com. Um, only because and and that's one of the reasons Kobo partners with folks in different territories. I'll give you a perfect example. So Talena is, is huge in Germany. And Toledo was a known and trusted brand that was built out of a whole bunch of a chain and independent books. Bookstores wanting to protect themselves from, from the on slot of a, of, of Amazon coming in and killing them. So to Leno was a brand that was established years ago and has built up trust and they, it's, it's a German born solution.

Mark (17m 49s):
So even though Kobo bought Tulino years ago, Kobo did not infuse itself into the market. Kobo actually backed out of the market. And and even though Kobo was producing that Talena readers now instead of it having the rackets and Kobo brand on it, it has to cause Talena was the trusted brand. Nobody knows Kobo in Germany, but they know until they know on from the Kobo you mean or what? Well, Toledo actually has its own independent, uh, independent platform. Actually, ironically, you can't even get into Tulino directly through Kobo.

Mark (18m 21s):
Um, and, and it's still operated as a separate company with a separate trusted brand. Even though Kobo owns the company and provides the hardware behind it, the actual cow catalog, believe it or not, um, the best way to get into to, I was actually through draft two digital. And again, that's because, uh, when that happened, when the takeover, uh, when Kobo purchased Tulino, there was an easy way for authors to get their works into Taino and it was working 100%. So there was no reason for when I was running the Kobo writing life team, there was no reason to go and rebuild something that would cost a lot of money if there was an easy way for authors to do it that was free.

Mark (19m 0s):
And there was, you know, so that's the kind of collaboration that a company like Kobo is interested in is what's, how are we helping enable readers and writers to come together instead of making it more complicated? So am um, they may one day invest in, in trying to get stuff into Toledo, but right now there's an easy way to get stuff there. So, um, they don't have to, you know, reinvent something when they can build something new and something fresh that doesn't already exist for authors.

Jesper (19m 27s):
But that's a good point about using the correct sort of works around their brands that the people know in the different countries because uh, yeah, well when I ran, ran the apps to watch the Netherlands and Belgium, I just wrote Kobo right. And yeah, maybe that's exactly the reason why it wasn't so successful at

Mark (19m 45s):
you never know. You never know. Right. I think, I think bowl is a more well known brand a and that's been around a long, long time and, and, and you may, you may have better luck with that or at least doing a combination of Kobo and ball or something like that. And that's what the partnerships are, are all about. And I think that's a distinguishing factor that people don't think about when they think about, you know, Kobo is a single retailer, like, you know, like Amazon but Kobo has different fields and different looks in different countries and you can check this out.

Mark (20m 17s):
Now again, this is just on Kobo. It's not on their, on their partner sites, but you can check it out if you're logged onto Kobo. So from Canada here, when I log on to kobo.com there's a little Canadian flag icon on the top right hand, um, uh, of the screen. If I click on that flag, it opens up a screen that allows me to see what the U S site looks like because it's merchandise differently. It's going to feature different titles with the UK site. Looks like what the, what the German site looks like, what the, what the, you know, the, the Netherlands or Spain or, or any of those other countries look like because they actually do have merchandisers, uh, around the world who are working with the local publishers looking to spotlight, uh, titles that are of interest to that specific market because you're not trying to Americanize the entire world.

Jesper (21m 11s):
W when it comes to the ad stuff, it's, it's always about figuring out the right sort of wording and then, then the, the right targeting. I mean, at least you can target the, at least with the Facebook.

Mark (21m 22s):
Yeah, of course. The director

Jesper (21m 25s):
narrowing down your audience by selecting people who have Kobo readers and all that good stuff.

Mark (21m 30s):
Yeah. Which is, which is fantastic. It's so great that we have these kinds of tools available to us, um, to make it easier to, to only show it to the right people.

Jesper (21m 40s):
Apart from the paid apps that we then have the opportunities to run or used to promotional tap is, is there anything else, uh, one can do to increase their sales rank in a corporal you pro universe?

Mark (21m 53s):
Yeah. I know this sounds basic and simple, but I have to say it because people just don't do it is uh, be inclusive. Don't just have links and share links to Amazon. I know it's the world's biggest bookstore, but they don't have every single customer in the world. They have a lot of customers. But there are people who read on different platforms. And again, I'm not saying this just for the benefit of Kobo, I'm saying it for the benefit of readers on a nook or Apple or Google or any of the other platforms because maybe they're a bowl customer. Maybe there are chapters, Indigo customer candidate or a w H Smith customer and and.

Mark (22m 26s):
And this is where am before I started working with draft to digital, when books to read. And that's books, the numeral two, read.com when that was launched, I thought, what a brilliant idea because prior to that existing, I would publish my books directly to Kobo. I would publish them directly to Kindle. And then I was using, you know, either Smashwords or drafted digital publish wide, but I would create my I pub. And then in the back of my Amazon book, I would have my Amazon legs. And then in the back of my Kobo book, I'd have my Kobo links.

Mark (22m 57s):
And in the back of my, uh, well I started to do a draft to digital, um, they automatically will insert links to whatever retailer they're sending it to, which is brilliant. So now when I create an I pub, I just use the, uh, universal book links because you know, for example, books to read.com/killing it on Kobo, which is one of my books. And if you, if you look go to that link, you will find a link to Amazon, Kobo w H Smith, Google am, nook, Apple, all the platforms.

Mark (23m 29s):
But beyond just that, and this is valuable even if you are exclusive Amazon because when you go to Amazon, um, I would probably, um, be redirected to the site in Canada and then there's the.uk in the.com and the dot D et cetera, et cetera. And so the same thing with Kobo Kobo, uh, you know, is just kobo.com in, in most territories. But it also is going to, if you click, if you share a kobo.com link from the U S and somebody in the UK clicks it, they're going to see the U S page.

Mark (24m 1s):
And I was going to say you can't buy it. You have to click on the UK page here. So it's an extra click and and and you don't want extra clicks. You want people to be able to click the buy button right away. So what the books to read, universal book links does is it allows the CA, it knows the geo-targeting and sends the consumer to the place where they can actually buy it at that same retailer. Um, and, and being inclusive is the first step because if you're doing advertising and sharing stuff about your book, unless you're specifically targeting Kobo customers or Amazon customers in a different territory, am because let's say you're part of a promo and you want to and you want to share that, um, share universal links be inclusive of all the retailers.

Mark (24m 42s):
You never know, um, where they're, where they're hanging out. And then similarly, I would say when you get a Kobo promo, it's not enough to just get the promo and sit back and cross your fingers. If you get a Kobo promo, let people know about it. Do you have a newsletter? Say, Hey, I'm in a 40% off promo for June four for Kobo. Here's a link to my title's just use this coupon code and you're done. And, and, and again, if it's a specific territory, you can say, Hey, depending on your newsletter, just send it to your UK authors.

Mark (25m 14s):
If it's a UK only promo or are you, I say UK readers, um, um, or, or at least let them know saying, Hey, I've got this book, uh, it's 40% off on Kobo. This is only applicable to the major English language territory's us, Canada, UK, Australia, New Zealand. Uh, it's still available everywhere else, but not at the discount. Oh. And if you happen to be an Amazon reader, you know, here's the universal book link. You can just get it on any, any retailer if you want to read it. Anyways, thanks for, thanks for being a reader. So I think being inclusive across the board is always your best option.

Mark (25m 47s):
Um, because a consumer may read that, let's say you, your newsletter posts and say, Oh my God, he's got this book I didn't even know he had. And it's on sale at Kobo. Well, I don't read on Kobo. I read on Apple. Oh good. There's a link to Apple. It makes it easy for me to buy it anyways because if I'm interested, I'm going to buy it where I'm going to buy it anyways. I'm most likely not gonna switch retailers just to buy it there because it's only available there or it's on sale there. Um, you're more likely to just go with what you're comfortable with. So I think inclusivity, um, like publishing mind, it's a, it's a much bigger thing than just than, than just considering, um, adding Kobo to your, to your profile.

Mark (26m 30s):
I would add as many retailers as possible because the, the broader you extend your, uh, publishing the, the broader the potential customer and reader base can be. And then and and that would include library systems too because through Kobo or through draft to digital or through other aggregators, you can also make your books available to the libraries. Um, and that's, and that's yet another discoverability platform that I think is really fantastic for writers. Very good bystanders, especially the thing about that, there is no reason to try to fight people's habits because you've got to lose every time.

Mark (27m 3s):
You know, if they, if they Kobo they will continue buying books or Kobo no matter how your mom, what you pushing you Amazon links, you know. Yes. It's just a waste of time. Um, but, but I also think that the funny thing is also that we S office, we often get into this am mentality that we think that we does know everything that we do. Because in my, when I send out my, my new status for chapel I at the bottom of the email, I just have my books listed down there next to them exclusively like you're saying.

Mark (27m 34s):
Of course. Yeah. Sorry. Interesting links. Uh, but um, but just having the list of there some people picks them up there and you should think, you know, after they've been on your list for like eight, 10, 12 months, you should think they'd know what, no, it's just as an easy trap to fall into that. You just assume that everybody knows it because they only list of it actually. That Oh, so just push the, push the link once in a while. Not every three weeks when you get a new promotion. But once in a while pushing it out, pushing out a linker, especially if there's some discount.

Mark (28m 7s):
That's great. Um, but you will pick up new readers from your own email list. It's quite ironic to me, but I'm glad you mentioned that cause that that is extremely valuable. Um, it's true. They may have only attended to the top 20% of the, of the last three emails you've sent, but today they had more time and they actually read it all the way to the bottom and went, Oh look, he has other books. I didn't know that even though you might've told them about it three months ago and they opened and they even open the newsletter, but they just scanned it and they missed it. Right. We miss so much information. The other thing, and this is, this is really cruel, a critical I should say is a am, a good buddy of mine, Shaun Costello is a horror author.

Mark (28m 43s):
And and through his newsletter, cause I help him with his publishing. Then there's marketing through his newsletter. We had a 30% off box set promo and it was only on Kobo. And so we sent out a note to the the newsletter subscribers in instead of just targeting Kobo people. We did send it to everyone just to let them know. But then we also included links to all the other retailers. Now we had am, we had like the main ones, so we had like Amazon and Apple and nook there and then we had the universal book link for all other retailers and it was amazing how many sales we got on all the other retailers for a Kobo specific promo.

Mark (29m 21s):
So you know if, if, if you're, if you've got some promo on, on Amazon for example in the book's available other places too, but maybe it's not part of a promo feature, just be inclusive. Include those links. Like you said, they may go, Oh, I didn't know this book was on Apple or Kobo or whatever. Nick click on it. It never hurts right, to, to have that available. No,

Jesper (29m 42s):
as long as you do it in with, with, you know, you're keeping your, your recipient of the email in mind that you don't spend them every three weeks to try to push more sales. But as long as you, you, you, you keep them in mind and you don't doing it. I mean, that's why I like adding it to the end of the email often because then it's not, it's not the topic of the email, it's just they had the bomb if in, in a bit of a smaller fund as well. So it's just there some of them like Florida. Um, and that, that works quite well, I think.

Jesper (30m 12s):
Yeah. I like, I like that approach. Yeah,

Mark (30m 16s):
I do like that approach. I think that that works a lot better. You're making sure they're aware of something, but you're not jamming it down their throats.

Jesper (30m 23s):
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, cool. Mark I think we've covered a lot of useful ground here. Is there anything else we should mention before we round off?

Mark (30m 32s):
I just think, uh, if, if you can stand the sound of my voice and you enjoy hearing my thoughts on publishing and writing, I do have a podcast of my own. It's a weekly podcast called starkreflections on writing and publishing and folks can check it out at starkreflections dot. CA. I, I kind of share my thoughts on, you know, 30 years in the industry and all the things I'm continuing to learn every single day.

Jesper (30m 56s):
Excellent. Yeah, I, I have listened to it and myself as well, so I can recommend going and checking it out. So thanks a lot for, for what you're doing. Thank you for showing up on my amwritingfantasy Mark that's great. Thanks. Jesper it's been, it's been amazing.