Mark Leslie Lefebvre - Killing It On Kobo: Leverage Insights to Optimize Publishing and Marketing Strategies, Grow Your Global Sales and Increase Revenue on Kobo

Table of Contents

Praise for Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Mark was a critical hire at a critical time for Kobo. We knew independent publishing was a growing phenomenon in eBooks but needed the right person to create that all-important bridge with the author community. Mark performed that role perfectly, winning authors over to Kobo Writing Life with his combination of energy, lived experience as an author, genuine enthusiasm for how technology could extend a writers reach. A truly valuable person.

Michael Tamblyn, CEO at Rakuten Kobo, Inc.

Mark built KWL from the ground up, creating a self-publishing platform that is regarded as the best in the digital publishing industry, and a cornerstone of Kobo's content catalogue. He worked tirelessly to foster an authors-first philosophy he embodied at all times. He often traveled to conferences to present to crowds large and small to educate authors about Kobo and KWL. As a boss, Mark is a supportive mentor who is always available and supportive.

Christine Munroe, Director, KWL at Rakuten Kobo, Inc.

Mark was a regular guest speaker for our students in the Creative Writing Program, at SFU Continuing Studies. His talks balanced providing encouraging information with the business realities of publishing. Our writers went away feeling excited about the publishing opportunities available to them, but also understood that though it is simple to publish through KWL or Amazon, success requires hard work. I personally enjoyed each one of Mark's presentations and would learn something new each time.

Andrew Chesham, Simon Fraser University

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KILLING IT ON KOBO

Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Stark Publishing Solutions

Copyright 2018 by Mark Leslie Lefebvre

Author photo 2018 Lauren Lang, Jacobin Photography

"Audiobook with headphones cover image 2018 Olga Danilina via Dreamstime.com

A Readers Manifesto (Speech text) 2015 by Michael Tamblyn

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission.

Stark Publishing Solutions

An Imprint of Stark Publishing

Waterloo, Ontario

www.starkpublishing.ca

Publishers Note: This work is derived from the authors experience in bookselling, writing and publishing and six years as the Director of Kobo Writing Life. It is meant to inform and inspire writers with tools and best practice strategies for success in publishing direct to Kobo.

The author and publisher believe that there is no single magic solution for everyone and that advice, wisdom and insights should be carefully curated and adapted to suit each individuals needs, goals and desires.

Killing it on Kobo / Mark Leslie Lefebvre

October 2018

Print ISBN: 978-1-7751478-4-8

eBook ISBN: 978-1-7751478-5-5

Audio ISBN: 978-1-7751478-6-2

This one is for the authors who made and who continue to make Kobo Writing Life a huge success.

Kobo built it, but it wasnt the fully-realized dream until the authors came, published, and conquered.

THIS BOOK is a summation of my experiences, beliefs, and practices as they relate to Kobo.

While it does draw upon my six years of experience as Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo, it is not meant to represent the viewpoint or perspective of Rakuten Kobo Inc. or any of its employees, past, present or future.

My aim is to leverage my expertise to help benefit authors and publishers looking to optimize their own engagement with this global retailer.

Great care was taken to ensure that the statistics shared in this book and in my consulting work with authors and publishers do not violate any confidentiality terms. Thus, the materials you are about to read are all items that have been previously shared publicly either by myself or other representatives from Kobo to publisher and author audiences over the years. These details are, subject to change based on market conditions and standard industry evolution.

They are meant to inform and inspire you with tools and best practice strategies. But I strongly believe there is no single magic bullet solution for everyone. The insights contained herein should be carefully adapted to suit your own individual needs and goals.

THIS WAS A book that not only needed to be written, but its a book I was meant to write.

There are plenty of books containing tips, strategies and marketing techniques to optimize sales on Kindle. But there are very few books with a specific focus on Kobo.

As of this writing, Kobo is one of the five largest eBook commerce sites on the planet. When I left Kobo in November 2017, Kobo Writing Life was the biggest single source of weekly unit sales, representing 1 in every 4 books sold in English, and 1 in every 5 books sold in all languages on Kobo.

The list of authors who cite Kobo as their second-best platform for sales continues to grow each year; and there are a cohort of writers who claim Kobo is the retailer where they earn their highest source of revenue.

If you are interested in being one of the authors leveraging the global power of Kobo, then this book is for you.

I worked as Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations at Kobo for six years. I was hired in the fall of 2011 and tasked with coming up with a solution for making it easier for self-published authors and small publishers to easily get their titles in to the Kobo catalog. I was the driving force behind the creation of Kobo Writing Life, the publish-direct to Kobo platform, and worked as that platforms champion both internally and externally, hiring staff that had an author-centric approach, and constantly soliciting feedback from the writing community to make the platform better.

After all, I was the very first author to sign up for Kobo Writing Life.

So, who better to write such a book?

Ill never forget that fateful morning when I was sitting down for an early morning meeting with Michael Tamblyn, current CEO of Rakuten Kobo Inc, at a restaurant in Toronto, Ontario to discuss the opportunity. But prior to getting to that significant moment in my career as a bookseller, I must take a slight digression to explain how that breakfast meeting took place. It is a bit of a tangential path, but Im a strong believer in the importance of context.