Mark is a writer, editor and bookseller who was born and grew up in the Greater Sudbury Region, spent many years in Ottawa and currently lives in Hamilton, Ontario.
Find him online at markleslie.com.
I ended up in publishing because I’ve always loved writing. I’ve always wanted to be a writer. When I was a kid, I told stories with my Fischer Price people.
I got a job in a university books store and I noticed that the new edition of a textbook was being developed before the current one was even on the shelves. Students were getting outdated information. Sometimes the changes were subtle and I realized it was a big money grab. I decided to do something about this abuse of students.
I talked the bookstore into investing in an Espresso Book Machine and we entered into an agreement with McGraw-Hill Ryerson and Nelson publishers. A professor would choose the chapters he felt were pertinent to the class he was teaching and the publisher would provide a .pdf of the chapters. These were printed and sold in store.
The custom edition of the material would be 50-60% cheaper for students. The publisher made more. The store made more. Free digital copies were made available if sales of the print edition were reasonable and everyone still profited.
I tried it out for fiction. Amazon ships in 24 hours, but with the Espresso, I could print on site in 15 minutes.
I learned that if you put authors first, you can both make money.
A textbook that cost $86 could be printed for $25 on the Espresso and we could ship it wherever the client wanted. Later, we uploaded it to Kobo and the ebook is still selling everywhere for $10.
I became a consultant for On-Demand Books and then joined Kobo. When Kobo wanted to put out a writer-centric platform, I wanted a part of that action. Kobo Writing Life came into being. It was less money, but I was passionate about books and authors.
Kobo Writing Life was built for writers. We’re in the top five in every territory. We sell more units than Random House in Canada.
As the platform grew, I gained staff. My team nurtures authors.
Q: How does Kobo Writing Life make self-publishing easier?
Authors used to have to go through the same process as a publisher to get their books on Kobo. Now you can do it overnight.
This raises an important question: you can put your book up overnight, but should you? Many authors rush into self-publishing before they’re really ready. Make sure you’re putting your absolute best work out there.
Q: I was in Adrienne Kerr’s session and she mentioned Booknet. Can you speak to that?
The average author can’t access Booknet. Until we can more of the key players on board, it won’t happen.
Q: If I’m an indie publisher or author, why should I bother with Kobo?
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. The more ways your readers can get hold of your books, the better. It’s not Kobo only, but Kobo and.
As ever, my notes cannot reflect the full experience. I can’t write that fast (!) And, Mark, if I’ve gotten anything wrong, please let me know and I’ll fix ‘er up post-hasty.
Up next: a Caturday quickie on the developments (construction and dog-wise) of the week.
Next weekend: Jacqueline Guest: Have Pen, Will Travel.
In the meantime, Happy Thanksgiving to all my Canadian readers, and we’ll see you on Tipsday with the Writerly Goodness of the week.
Filed under: Authorial name dropping Tagged: Kobo, Kobo Writing Life, Literary Festival, Mark Leslie, nurturing authors, Self-publishing, When Words Collide, WWC2014
