Going wide is a struggle. #TheStruggleIsReal has never been truer than when you are trying to put your book in front of readers . . . all over the world.

I’ve documented my recent success failure, and I’ve decided to give this journey a year. I’m going to work at it, try my best, and see if I can’t really find some readers (and in doing so sell some books).

Of course, anyone who has tried and failed will tell you it’s not as easy as uploading your books to Draft2Digital, and watching the royalties roll in. If it were that easy, everyone would be rich and self-help books would be non-existent.

Not everyone has time to sit down and read a book. The free time a writer has could be filled with many things:

• writing
• beta reading for a friend or peer
• reading to give a review
• reading a book in your genre to keep up to date with what’s going on with the industry around you
• sleeping

Sleeping wins a lot of the time, and it’s not a surprise that when I recommend a non-fiction book, that people rarely read it. Or they grab it, and it takes them a few months to read the whole thing. In this day and age, people need their information in short chunks like a blog post, or they want to listen to a podcast while they get their 10,000 steps in while walking their dog. 3 in 1!

But reading non-fiction is different. If someone has taken the time to write a book about it . . . then there is enough information about it to write the book!

That means information you need.

I’m lucky. I can read at work. That means I can read more than the average writer.

I’ve read books that that have no relevancy in today’s publishing landscape. I’ve read books where I could use the information that day. Indie authors who help us by writing non-fiction have the upper hand there. It doesn’t take a year for their book to come out. In that year, the industry moves so fast, their information could be close to irrelevant. If you’re self-publishing, reading indie non-fiction is the way to go.

If you are wide, it helps to know how the platforms work. No one has written how Nook works, or Apple Books. Maybe there’s nothing to know. Upload and wait.

That’s fine. Less reading for us.

But there is a book about Kobo, and if you’re wide, you’re gonna wanna know how this publishing platform works, and how you can make it work to your advantage. (For numbers to prove my point, look at this article from Forbes.) Where Kindle supplies ebooks to the United States, Kobo supplies ebooks to the rest of the world.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre has more than enough experience to write Killing it on Kobo, and if you want to use Kobo as a vital part of your publishing plan, you should pick it up! He was on the ground floor of creating Kobo Writing Life (something he talks about in the book) and explains the various functions of the platform. Like how to gain access to the promotions tab for authors and what to do with it once you have it. He goes into detail about pricing, what Kobo Plus is all about, and how to make your ebook available in the public library system.

If anything, the book is an important navigational tool so you already have some idea of what your dashboard will look like when you choose to publish your book there.

I encourage you to buy the paperback . . . unless you are so handy at maneuvering with your ereader you won’t mind trying to find “that one paragraph that said . . .”

I beat up my paperbacks with highlighting, coffee stains, and dog ears, but they are very useful for marking the sections I think I’ll need the most.

At any rate, Kobo is striving to always be a relevant competition for Amazon’s Kindle, and you can’t ignore the deal they have with Walmart. If you’ve ever been in your local Walmart lately looking at books, you’ll find a complete section of Kobo devices and ebook gift cards!

And did you know that Kobo came out with the first water-resistant ereader? Awesome for the bath-takers in your life. Trust me, I’ve ruined a Kindle and two Nooks!

This isn’t a blog post to convince you to use Kobo to publish your book–as always going wide is a personal choice for you and your business.

Though, no doubt if you enjoy seeing your book everywhere, it’s a little thrilling to see your book being sold on Walmart’s e-book website:

Don’t Run Away is missing because Walmart won’t/can’t “sell” a free book, and Don’t Run Away is permafree on all platforms as hopefully a way to encourage readers to give me a try without risking any money. I tried to find a couple of my other books, but as an unknown, they’re probably on page 60 of the search results, and I don’t have time to look. Searching my name didn’t help (no author pages that I could find), so I can only hope if/when my books become more popular, they will be closer to the front of the search results.

But Mark goes into every detail of the advantages of using Kobo and how you can utilize them to sell your books.

Reading non-fiction is a part of having your business hat on, not your writer’s hat.

I understand selling books is a lot harder than writing them . . . and that’s saying something! But, to keep selling, you have to keep learning!

Killing it on Kobo makes it easy . . . the Kobo part, anyway.

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Every couple of weeks, I’ll try to highlight a non-fiction book that is helping me publish books wide.

Killing it on Kobo is a definite must if you are planning on using that platform in an effort to go wide.

You can find Killing it on Kobo here. Or you can click here if you want the paperback.

Follow Mark and his Stark Publishing blog here.

Or you can listen to his podcast. Find out more here.

I hope those links are useful to you.

He is no longer at Kobo Writing Life. He’s moved on to Draft2Digital and writes his own fiction books.

Christine Munroe is head of KWL now and you can follow her here on Twitter.

Kobo Writing Life also has a blog (Kobo Writing Life Blog)  for authors, and a podcast (Kobo Writing Life Podcast) too. Don’t miss out on these opportunities to grow your business!

It doesn’t work to publish your book and walk away. You have to be an active participant. And I don’t mean DMing a Buy My Book message to your Twitter followers like the one I received this morning. He promised he wouldn’t blow up my inbox, and he’s right. He won’t. He can’t since I unfollowed him.

There are better ways to put your book in front of people who actually want to read it.

Start here.

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My books are wide! Find them wherever ebooks are sold. 🙂

Don’t Run Away: books2read.com/dont-run-away
Chasing You: books2read.com/Chasing-You
Running Scared: books2read.com/running-scared

Wherever He Goes: books2read.com/whereverhegoes1
All of Nothing: books2read.com/allofnothing1
The Years Between Us: books2read.com/the-years-between-us