Pat's Convention Note #27 of 100 things I learned from attending LITERARY CONFERENCES

#27. Are You Connected? I mean really?

While attending a mixer hosted by Draft2Digital at the annual RT Booklovers Convention in Dallas this year (2015), I approached Ian with Apple and asked him why my books weren’t selling as well in iBooks as those on KDP, even though I had the Apple buy links on my website.

Ian: “Do you have a series?”

Me: Yes

“Do you have them linked?”

Me: “Of course.”

However, when Ian searched for one book in my Guilty series on his iPhone, I was shocked that they weren’t, despite me marking them as such: Guilty of Love (Book I), Not Guilty of Love (Book II), Still Guilty (Book IV) and The Acquittal (Book V).

Ian said sometimes the problem is on their end. When the “problem” wasn’t corrected a few weeks after returning from RT, I emailed Ian and within a day, my series books were linked.

This is how my Guilty series books now look in the Apple store.

This lesson got me to thinking how my books were packaged on other platforms. Recently, Amazon started packing series. When I searched for STOPPING TRAFFIC, I noticed how on the left side Amazon has all four books in my Love at the Crossroads series were lumped together.  Again, this is a visual reminder to the reader that my books are in a series. The “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” doesn’t indicate if books are in a series, especially if the covers don’t indicate it.

Below is from the KOBO website—problem.  THE ACQUITTAL isn’t listed in a series and the other books aren’t even recommended. Two books in the Guilty series are listed only as “People Who Read This Also Enjoyed.” One thing I discovered with KOBO is it gives the author an option to number the books in the series when uploading. This shouldn’t be an option. Plug in those numbers. I contacted the KOBO rep who I also met at the Draft2Digital mixer about this. See her response below the picture.

Hi Pat,

Here are some tips that I think will help get things on a better track at Kobo:

1. Add Kobo links to your website and social media.
2. http://kobowritinglife.com/2015/01/29/selling-more-of-your-series-books-on-kobo-11/  -- follow these tips for your series. You need to be very careful about matching metadata across every series to be sure kobo.com links all of these books correctly. For example, use "Guilty Series" for all titles instead of "The Guilty Series" for some and not others (see attached). Keep an eye on our blog for lots of KWL-specific advice.
3. Manually adjust pricing for every title for all English-speaking countries, instead of relying on the auto-converter. That tool creates strange prices in our main markets (such as Canada — see how your prices appear to Canadian customers in the screenshot). Make sure all countries reflect the $x.99 that customers are accustomed to seeing.

I hope that's a helpful starting point. Let me know if you have any additional questions.

Christine Munroe

I thanked her, now I have to apply her suggestions. After that, I’ll tackle Smashwords and Barnes & Noble.  

I'm sure there will be a part 2 to this note. 

Thanks for reading.