Lindsay - July 30, 2020We’ve got a mix of topics for today’s show. We start out with some news from our hosts, then jump into discussing the expansion of Kobo Plus into Canada and why authors should consider having a strategy as more ebook subscription services come online. After that, we share some of the marketing things that are working for us in 2020. We finish up by answering a couple of listener questions.
Kobo Plus news:
“Kobo Plus has officially launched in Canada! For those who need a refresher, Kobo Plus is an all-you-can-read subscription service that we’ve been offering in the Netherlands and Belgium since 2017. Subscribers pay a flat monthly fee to read unlimited books for as long as they are enrolled in the program.”
https://kobowritinglife.com/2020/07/15/5-reasons-to-enroll-your-books-in-kobo-plus/
How does Kobo Plus pay publishers?
“Your payments for Kobo Plus are based on the amount of time that subscribers spent reading your titles in a given month… Each month, we take the total revenue (we’ll call that Monthly Revenue) earned from Kobo Plus subscriptions. We also take the total minutes that all subscribers spent reading that month. (Minutes Read). We divide the Monthly Revenue by the Minutes Read, which allows us to assign a monetary value to each minute of reading (let’s call it Value per Minute Consumed). This value will fluctuate month to month based on subscriber number and total reading time.”
After talking specifically about Kobo Plus, we share our thoughts on subscription program strategies to maximize exposure/visibility while keeping our income as authors high.
Marketing Tips for 2020 (what’s working well for us right now):
- Focusing on complete series bundles as new releases and running sales on the backlist to get more readers and help drive sales to new releases.
- Instead of just running sales to a discounted Book 1, doing full-series discounts and promos with older series.
- Doing KingSumo giveaways to build the mailing list.
- Free series starters (free books in general) are doing particularly well this year, even on Amazon, where people have complained in the past that free is dead.
Listener Questions:
- Amanda: So I know that the three of you have multiple series. Do you have any advice for me: I am almost finished writing my second book in a 2 book series, 100k words each. Women’s fiction. Any ideas for how to release and market? Price of book 1 at release and then price drop (or free) when book 2 releases? Time between releases of book 1 and 2?
- Paddy: What are your thoughts on 99c boxsets, and would you use them as a promo tool? It definitely drives higher page reads. I’m more interested in finding out what the hosts think longterm. Does it train readers to expect too much for too little? Is it sustainable? Is it necessary to maintain an edge over competition? Would readers prefer an amazing story at standard price over a mediocre story that costs peanuts? Etc.
Thank you for listening, and thank you to Joshua Pearson for producing the show.
