Kobo Writing Life: Tips for Working Collaboratively With Indie Authors

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By Christine Munroe of Kobo Writing Life

Self-published authors are a strong and mighty tribe, whose success and numbers continue to grow. At Kobo, eBooks published through our self-publishing platform, Kobo Writing Life (KWL), regularly rank in our top 50 eBooks.

Many self-published authors tell us they are eager to find ways to work with their local bookstores, but they don’t know where to start. As a bookseller, you can encourage indie authors to make sure they’ve uploaded their eBooks to Kobo via Kobo Writing Life. It’s free and easy, and this will ensure that their titles are available for sale to your affiliate customers.

Once a book is available on Kobo, indie authors should be sure to link to IndieBound and share links to your store’s Kobo page. This will help drive their fans to your store for all of their eBook needs.

Authors often want information on writing, formatting, marketing, and more. The KWL blog and podcast are regularly updated, free resources addressing all of these questions, so feel free to share these links with authors.

Indie authors can help you sell more eBooks in other ways. A popular strategy is to offer the first book in a series for free to entice readers to give a new author or series a chance. We’ve put together a Free eBooks page, mostly featuring KWL eBooks whose first titles in a series are free. This page is a perfect opportunity for you to encourage reluctant customers to give eReading a try after signing up for a Kobo account affiliated with your store.

If indie authors come to you with additional questions about KWL specifically, you can always suggest that they contact us by e-mail at [email protected]. We love hearing from authors and we’re happy to help.