Tags
Amazon, Amazon Kindle, Author Lada Ray, Barnes & Noble, ebooks, indie authors, Indie Publishing, Kindle, Kobo, Kobo Writing Life, Kobo.com, Nook, publishing, Smashwords
I have received this informative email from Kobo (read below) and decided to re-post it here for the benefit of all Indie authors. It appears that Kobo Writing Life -the Indie publishing arm of the company – has received bad press in the United Kingdom for allegedly not screening the books they have on sale and therefore violating their own guidelines. As a result, Kobo initiated a massive Indie book removal and inspection. If you publish with Kobo in the UK and were affected by mistake, the email below is straight out of the horse’s mouth and explains Kobo’s position.
I understand the books targeted by this removal are basically hard-core erotica and such. I must say that regardless of the type of books Kobo is presently reviewing, I for one am very happy they are actually taking an interest in addressing some of their problems, which are many. I sincerely hope they become more responsive and more responsible about their Indie publishing service soon.
Although my rant below may seem slightly off topic, but it illustrates vividly Kobo’s desire to jump on the ebook and indie publishing bandwagon, while failing to take their responsibility seriously. The only reason I’m writing this is that I sincerely hope someone at Kobo sees it and finally takes action!
Here goes: I opened an account with Kobo Writing Life a while back, planning on listing with them directly, however, the royalty info page refused to take my bank aba, although I tried several different options on multiple occasions. Because of that, I was unablle to complete my registration process. Glitches happen, you say. I thought so too, until I realized that the Kobo Writing Life website contained no customer service email or phone number whatsoever, which made it impossible to advise them of the problem and to resolve it. After an extensive Google search for any contact info, I gave up on trying to work with Kobo Writing Life. Although I do list my books with Kobo, I presently do so through Smashwords. Another problem is that they are very slow to list titles. It seems, books easily fall between the cracks with Kobo. To this day, one of my books is still not listed, although it was submitted several months ago!
I’d love to work with them directly, but they really have to get their act together!
If anyone at Kobo is reading this, please correct your royalty/bank info glitch and list a customer service email on your site! Thank you!
We, Indies, talk a lot about the need to broaden our reach through diversification via different sources and the need to create a healthy competition for the Amazon/ Kindle near monopoly. Yet other retailers are not making it easy! To this day, only Amazon, with the exception of Smashwords, answers emails promptly, updates book content quickly and does everything else with decent turnaround. I love Barnes&Noble, but they take their sweet time answering email inquiries and correcting problems. Although, I must say their reply time has decreased significantly from several weeks in the past to just a week or so. That’s already a huge improvement! Hope Kobo takes the leaf from BN’s book soon!
Kobo, I want to work with you – please make it easier to do so!
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Bravo Lada, I hope a Kobo rep does read this and make the effort to revamp their e-publishing platform. Sadly, they have a long way to go before catching up with the big boys, but it is possible. Good customer service feedback is key!
Lada, perhaps you should send them your resume, they need a good PR person who’s also a writer!
A tantalizing thought, he he, but that would probably involve a move to Canada, considering their address – LOL. Not that I’m against Canada – a very nice country – but since I’ve just moved… 😉
Thanks for taking the time to post this. 🙂
Any time, my friend 🙂
Interesting. You use Smashwords-Kobo and Amazon-Kindle? Isn’t there a conflict? Because Kindle “alerted” me to the fact that one of my books (it was all really) was available with another service, so they wouldn’t enroll it in KDP select until I took it down. I did, but they’re still be dildos about it. All I can do is be thankful they weren’t wise to my all my other titles.
You don’t have to be enrolled in KDP Select on Kindle if you don’t want to. I choose not to participate in Select as I prefer wide distribution. If you are part of KDPS, you can’t list with other retailers. You may want to read my previous posts on the topic.
And Amazon usually is pretty hard-assed about it, so better not play with fire because if they find out…
An interesting post Lada. Personally I find Kobo’s Writing Life to be difficult to navigate. I removed my book from Kobo last month, in part because I am thinking of utilising Amazon’s KDP Select programme.
I see what you mean. Kobo really needs to try and improve their model if they want to compete with #Kindle. This is my big wish for them as I believe in diversification and want to work closer with more distributors, having tried #KDPSelect. Check out my posts about my past experiences before you plunge into it. You can find them under “writing and publishing” category.
In any case, best of luck, Guy!