There are actually a lot of different platforms where you can publish your books on and you're maybe considering Kobo as one of the options.
Find out how to self publish on Kobo as well as some other tips to help you on your self-publishing journey.
Today's question has three answers and you're going to want to stick around for the third answer. Because it's a secret that will save you a lot of paperwork if you do plan to publish on Kobo.
So the question that was sent to me today was how to self publish on Kobo? Now, this is an excellent question because we've seen many different platforms for which you can choose to publish on.
And maybe Kobo is the right one for you. It is maybe better than Amazon or maybe equally as good. Maybe you would want to publish on Kobo in addition to some of the other places that you've been publishing your books.
Knowing Kobo
You're wondering how exactly do you go about doing this? By the end of this article, you're going to know what Kobo is.
You're going to have the information to get started publishing there and you're going to feel great knowing you're not going to be buried in a pile of paperwork.
But before we get into that, check out my free Self-Publishing Checklist. It will help you get started right away on your self-publishing journey and make sure you're not skipping any of the important steps when it comes to publishing.
Now, how to self publish on kobo? Let me start a little bit with my story. When I first got started publishing, I realized that I had started on Kindle which was fantastic. I started seeing sales coming in.
Check out this related article: How To Start Self Publishing Through Kindle?
But other people mentioned, "wait you should have a paperback version". So I did KDP Print or CreateSpace at the time. What about the audio version? Then I was able to use my Kindle version to get the audio version of the books out.
After that I was like "wait for a second, there's a whole pile of different ones from Apple Books too". There is a whole
series of networks like Kobo and Barnes and Noble that we wish to put our books out on.
But there comes in the challenge. It is that each of these requires you to put the book into the correct format. You have to register all of your tax information with each of these companies.
You have to make sure the formatting is exactly right. You have to check it in and when the receipts start to come in, that is when you start to make sales. All of the different regions will send different receipts usually from any of these books.
Kobo An Anagram Of Book
You suddenly will have to keep track of which one came from which one in your bank account. You will start seeing all of these receipts coming in. And this money coming in is great on the one side.
But on the other side, it creates a huge burden when it comes to spending so much time working on your bookkeeping. As opposed to writing and putting out more books.
So what came to me was that I was listening to a podcast and the person who does Smashwords introduced themselves and pointed out that you can get your books published on Kobo. Just going through Smashwords, where they would distribute to Smashwords and a bunch of other networks.
Then you would just get your payment through Smashwords. A single line as opposed to having to go to all of these sites. Besides, you don't have to format and upload your book to all of these sites.
You can just go to Smashwords and they distribute your book right on through, assuming it's in the right format. Now, I use Jutoh to do the formatting. It's by far the best piece of software on the market.
It ensures that your books are looking perfect right from the start. So that's the one that I went with and I found that worked out really well. Putting all of the books right on through Smashwords.
Even to this day, we continue getting the books out onto Smashwords to get it onto Kobo. And the result was that I was simply getting a single thing. It made my life so much easier.
So how to self publish on Kobo? Well, before we get started with that, as I told you Kobo is an anagram of the word book. It's a Canadian company that is underneath a Japanese company that sells ebooks and audiobooks.
Though generally, we always do want to go with the top sellers of books or audiobooks. So ACX Audible would be for the audiobook portion. For our ebooks, we definitely want to make sure we have a Kindle book on the market so that should be said before we even open the door to Kobo.
You Must Publish Broadly
You need to make sure that wherever the most readers are and most sales can be made, then we're going to have it there. That's not to say that Kobo isn't going to make your sales. It just probably isn't going to make you as much money as Amazon would be.
But I do not suggest just going with Amazon. You should publish it broadly. And so the answer is you can go directly with them but you do not want to be uploading individual books.
That's why you're going to go with Smashwords instead. You're going to put your books on Smashwords. You get an ebook EPUB using Jutoh right onto their platform.
Then they will do a quick check and they'll do a secondary check. If it goes off to Kobo and a pile of other sites, they give you a great revenue return on the royalties. They take very little of that money and they're on the most number of sites.
Check out this related article: Self Publishing On Amazon In 2020 + What You NEED To Know!
You could also try Drafts2Digital but I recommend and I've tested Smashwords is the better option for me. Maybe you might have a different one. I'd love to hear about it in the comments.
But Smashwords is the one that I found works best for my books. And that brings us to today's secret answer of the day. Our third answer is that if you try to distribute your books on every possible channel, you will waste a lot of time on bookkeeping.
Also, in terms of formatting and the uploading process of your books, as opposed to creating the books. You do not want to waste all of your time doing that portion of the work. So save yourself a lot of time and just simply put it through Smashwords and you will not face this problem.
Conclusion
So how to self publish on Kobo? What have you found?
Have you preferred putting it directly on Kobo?
Go and type "yes" below in the comments and if not type "no" below in the comments.
That also tells me that you're actually finding this article of value. Just "yes" or "no" in the comments if you have published a book on Kobo or not.
I would love to hear from you. Check out my other blogs and videos for more answers to your self-publishing questions.