Quote:
Originally Posted by Lush
Why do Kobo offer 30% discount codes to use on selected books, when all they have to do is apply the discount to the listed books for the duration of the promotion?
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Because the price is set by the author or publisher, even for the duration of the promo. I participate in a number of the promos and I set not only the price for the promo, but agree to the various discounts, which come from my part of the sale. (Sometimes the discount is 10 percent, sometimes it's 30, etc).
Many of the promos are "author" or "publisher" supported. This is part of the reason you see the same books--the publisher has to select which books go in which promos. Then Kobo sets up the lists and makes sure the coupons work with those books.
These promos are still popular. My books are obviously not in all of them, but when they are in one of the promos, they generally sell quite well. First is series sell better than other books so you will very often see the same books submitted because as authors we find that the first in the series sells more books.
THere are various rules to the promos. Sometimes Kobo only wants recently released books (within the last year). Sometimes they want higher priced books that are HIGHLY discounted (50 percent or more). Sometimes they do 99 cent sales.
It's a very complex part of the business, but Kobo can only discount books WITH THE AGREEMENT of the author or publisher. They are not allowed to offer discounts on any old book--the publishers do not allow them to do that. They can offer a range of coupons depending upon the country, publisher rules, geo-restrictions and so on, but as many coupons were used where they were not supposed to work and so on, they have tightened the coupon use and restrictions.
In all honesty, I think Kobo would love to be able to offer more discounts, but there's limitations to how fast and often they can code for them--and account for the coupons being used where they shouldn't work and where georestriction rules fail and so on.