Thread: Kobo Discounts: Coupon Codes + Discussion
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Old 11-16-2017, 05:49 AM   #16492
Rev. Bob
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Quote:
Originally Posted by ottdmk View Post
There've been a lot of discussions around here about the sales and discounts at Kobo, and occasionally somebody with useful insider information chimes in. Namely BearMountainBooks.

It seems that when Kobo offers one of these sales/promotions, they send out notices to all the publishers asking them to participate. If a publisher doesn't want to participate, the coupon code doesn't work on their books. Simple.
Not so simple, I fear.

As some of you may know, I run a small "ebook services" operation - editing, formatting, proofreading, and sometimes a little cover design. Generally, I return three finished files: an EPUB to be uploaded to Amazon, a DOC file for the Smashwords Meatgrinder (to generate the oddball formats), and an optimized EPUB to replace what the Meatgrinder produces.

Here's the thing: Smashwords distributes to Kobo, and I've never known a Smashwords author to be given the option to participate in a Kobo promotion. I don't know if that means Smashwords negotiates on their behalf, or there's an automatic agreement in place, or what - I just know that no Smashwords author of my acquaintance has been asked whether they want to be part of a promotion for any of the stores Smashwords distributes to. Not Kobo, not Apple... nowhere. By contrast, Smashwords has its own store and offers very granular participation in its sitewide promotions there - not just at the author level, but down to the individual book and participation level, which can be changed at any point during the sale.

That's a pretty big heap of non-agency content that Kobo could, if they wanted to invest the effort, potentially include in its promotions. I'm sure they wouldn't hit that same level of granularity, but I also wouldn't think it would be that hard to give each author a "participate in promotions" option on their Smashwords dashboard that would give Kobo et al. permission to apply coupons to their books.

It'd be an initial challenge to set up, sure - but it's possible, and now I wonder if either side has proposed that.
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