So when you're buying Ebooks from Walmart, and you can even see the branding there with that Walmart star, it's powered by Rakuten Kobo. You've probably heard the news recently in the last few months that Kobo just partnered with Walmart in the US. American Booksellers Association (indie bookstores) US.WHSmith & Waterstones & Sainsbury’s (UK).Walmart, Best Buy, Future Shop (CA, US).When you're looking at Kobo, your book's not available just at their online store, it's also available at the bookseller retail partners in the various countries: And that's a bit part of the differences between a place like Kobo and a place like Amazon. Thinking about that global presence, we're not just talking about - but also the retail partnerships that Kobo has. Then 13 UK, then Australia, then New Zealand, then you get into a whole bunch of other countries. Me specifically, about 44% of my sales at Kobo come from Canada, then 20% US.

So countries like Canada and Australia are very typically the top-selling regions for most authors. The blue dots represent where in the world my books have sold.Īs you can see, the larger the blue dot, the higher the percentage. This is a map of my Kobo Writing Life dashboard map of my sales since almost day one of the platform: Let's look at the places where Kobo retails in - which is in 190 countries. Even if you're doing really, really well in a place like Amazon - if you're only selling there, then you're missing out. What is Kobo? Why is Kobo important, how does it work, and how is it different from Amazon? The question often comes up: should I publish directly to Kobo or with a distributor? There are pros and cons for each and I'm going to be completely transparent and walk through whatever works for you. Mark Leslie Lefebvre has been involved in self-publishing since 2004, is the former Director of Self-Publishing & Author Relations for Kobo, a former President of the Canadian Booksellers Association, and is currently the Director of Business Development for Draft2Digital.

Rakuten kobo writing life