Kobo Writing Life now open (New direct self-pub program)

[MMHaven]

I just got the email from Kobo:

You can create a Kobo Writing Life account as a single-sign on from your existing Kobo reader account at the following address:

http://writinglife.kobobooks.com

If you happen to already have an existing publisher account with Kobo, there is the ability, within the registration process, to identify your existing accountID. Please take the time to do this as it will help us with migrating your existing titles in to your new Kobo Writing Life account (but please note that the process to migrate any pre-existing titles over will take several weeks)

Bring us your Word, Open Office or mobi files for conversion into the ePub standard; or bring your pre-formatted ePub files and upload them easily. Then enter your metadata, set your price for various currencies, and when you’re ready, hit publish to bring your eBook to Kobo customers around the globe. Inside the Learning Centre you’ll find our FAQ and User Guide as well as a handy video that walks you through the publishing process. And the dashboard will allow you to track your sales in near-real time from every global region you choose to make your titles available in.

I'm excited by this; I'm getting my first book ready for publication, and I would much rather have control over it than use Smashwords - just a personal preference. The ability to publish worldwide is also great, and I think that Kobo allows coupons, though I'm not sure how that would work for indie authors.

What do you guys think? I'm not sure about being tied to my reader account and how that will work with having a pen-name, but I'll figure it out.

[gmw]

I am impressed that they are accepting a range of inputs - especially that they will accept pre-formatted ePub files. Like you, I would rather have control over this than leave it something like the Smashwords meatgrinder. It sounds like a great idea and I hope it proves successful for them - it might pressure others into offering this sort of flexibility.

[VydorScope]

Eh, Kobo sales have not proven to be worth the time yet. I likely will always publish direct mobi to Amazon, and format specifically for Kindle because they have the sales to warrant the effort. I may start doing that for B&N. But Kobo? They are less then 5% of my sales, I do not see it a good use of my time to get them perfect. For all of those small shops, I'll let Smash do it. Rather use that time in editing then dealing with them.

If Kobo grows successful, then I will likely change my tune.

[Muckraker]

I published one of my books to Kobo last night as a test run. The process of signing up and publishing content is incredibly simple and straight-forward. It's slightly more streamlined than Amazon and BN publishing. And then there's Apple...

I don't know how sales will be but it's only going to take about five minutes a book to get my content listed there. I abandoned Apple after my test run. Their process was totally unsupported and annoying. It took four months to go through the sign-up and get the title approved. I even had to buy an old Mac for the sole purpose of publishing to Apple. All that and I haven't seen a single iTunes sale.

[MMHaven]

I see what you mean, VydorScope; I guess I am just excited about getting my work seen in other countries. Since you publish on Kindle, do you know if Amazon makes it possible to do this?

Kobo has a better reputation than BN for customer service, and I'm hoping that they carry that over to their writer's program. I know BN is a lot larger, but since I don't plan on going exclusive, every little bit helps!

[VydorScope]

Originally Posted by MMHaven

I see what you mean, VydorScope; I guess I am just excited about getting my work seen in other countries. Since you publish on Kindle, do you know if Amazon makes it possible to do this?

Yes, but my sales out side of US and UK have been dismal at best.

Kobo has a better reputation than BN for customer service, and I'm hoping that they carry that over to their writer's program. I know BN is a lot larger, but since I don't plan on going exclusive, every little bit helps!

Oh. my books are are Kobo, just via Smashwords. I advise that you get them in every store you can.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Eh, Kobo sales have not proven to be worth the time yet. I likely will always publish direct mobi to Amazon, and format specifically for Kindle because they have the sales to warrant the effort. I may start doing that for B&N. But Kobo? They are less then 5% of my sales, I do not see it a good use of my time to get them perfect. For all of those small shops, I'll let Smash do it. Rather use that time in editing then dealing with them.

If Kobo grows successful, then I will likely change my tune.

If you are willing to go B&N, what harm and what real cost is it to take the SAME ePub and up it to Kobo? It takes nothing much to do so and every sale is a sale. It's not worth it to ignore Kobo. Besides, it will help get your eBook(s) out beyond the USA to readers.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by VydorScope

Oh. my books are are Kobo, just via Smashwords. I advise that you get them in every store you can.

That could be the problem. A lot of people don't buy Smashwords meatground eBooks just on the principle of the meatgrinder and the mess they can end up being. For me, if someone came to MR and said they put up a hand crafted ePub on Kobo, I would take a look to see if it's something i might be interested in. As long as it's not Word > Calibre > Kobo (unless it's been cleaned up after the Calibre conversion), then I'll go look.

[1olddragon]

I have uploaded 5 books to the Kobo Writing Life directly as epubs. They all sideloaded great as epubs to my Kobo Touch (with little changes that I could live with), but going through the portal has changed the epub, though the site said it wouldn't be converted. I could only view the free one, because for some reason I cannot buy the ones for sale. I get error code 39 which I was told meant I could not purchase the books and it had nothing to do with my credit card. Is this because I am the seller?

So the one I could download, the free one, had issues with centering and indenting text and adding spaces between paragraphs which makes lines of poetry look strange. I am still waiting on responses from the help people and waiting for an update to take effect that I am hoping will address some of the issues, but it is 2 days and no word and no update.

If anyone else has the same issues and gets some fixes please let me know. I am wondering if it works better starting with a Word document and letting it convert? I don't know why it can look fine when sideloaded and not look fine going through the portal.

[VydorScope]

Well, its very early in its life yet. I would expect it to have a bunch of problems till a few rounds of patches hit it.

[Harper Kingsley]

How do they pay people? I really like receiving money through Paypal ala Smashwords, but I don't mind how Amazon does it. B&N's policy of needing a credit card kind of threw me off.

[GA Russell]

Thanks MMH!

[tekline]

mobi files written by Kindle Writer is converted very well into epub by Kobo Writing Life. And at the same time you can download the epub and use it for other platforms. A win win situation.

You can find out more about Kindle Writer at the website. Just do a Google Search ..