The Publishing Performance Show

Mark Leslie Lefebvre - Unlocking the Secrets of Kobo and Wide Publishing

• Teddy Smith • Episode 8

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Mark Leslie Lefebvre is a prolific author, book industry expert, and self-publishing innovator. He has published over twenty-five books across various genres, including thrillers, horror, paranormal non-fiction, and guides for authors. His industry experience includes leadership roles at Kobo, Draft2Digital, and several major book industry organizations.

In this episode:

  • Mark's journey as a writer, from early rejections to published author
  • The inspiration behind his horror and urban fantasy writing
  • Mark's writing process and collaboration with editors
  • The development and features of Kobo Writing Life
  • Comparison of Kobo to other platforms like Amazon KDP
  • Effective marketing tactics for authors, including price promotions
  • The importance of focusing on your niche audience
  • Mark's consulting work and advice for authors


Resources mentioned:


Book recommendation: 

  • "The Business of Being a Writer" by Jane Friedman


Connect with Mark Leslie Lefebvre:


Connect with Teddy Smith:


Join our Facebook Community - https://www.facebook.com/groups/publishingperformance/

[00:00:00] Teddy: Hello everybody and welcome to the publishing format show today I'm super excited to be interviewing Mark Leslie Lefebvre who's not only a massive name in the self publishing world but he's also an author and he's one of the people that helped set up the Kobo publishing system to enable people to publish their books on Kobo as well.

[00:00:23] Teddy: Now Kobo is kind of like a competitor to Kindle. You've probably heard of it. You might have seen it in WH Smith or in other bookstores or in the [00:00:30] airport, but it's actually a really good platform and it's bigger in some countries than Kindle is. So it's not a platform that you should be ignoring. In this session today, we're going to be doing a bit of a deep dive into exactly how you can get going with Kobo, some tips and tricks for how you can make your book stand and much, much more.

[00:00:46] Teddy: So enjoy the show and hopefully we'll speak soon. Hi everyone, and welcome to the publishing performance show. I'm here with Mark Leslie, the favorite, who is an author, a book industry representative, and also just an all round [00:01:00] book nerd. He said that not me. So we can welcome Mark to the show. Teddy, how you doing?

[00:01:06] Teddy: Yeah, welcome. Thanks for joining. I really appreciate you spending your time here. Did you always want to be a writer? 

[00:01:14] Mark Leslie: I mean, I wanted to be a stuntman. I want to be a firefighter. I want to be a police officer. I want to be an astronaut, like all those things, but it was probably in my early teens that I recognized my love of creativity started off a little doodles.

[00:01:27] Mark Leslie: You know, a little stick figure cartoons that I would [00:01:30] write and then it was probably around around the age of 13, 14 that I first discovered a typewriter in the back of my mom's closet under a dust cover. And I just remember because I did like story. And I remember using the typewriter to do, I did a full page of words that I type like 

[00:01:50] Teddy: a manual one, like a clicky 

[00:01:52] Mark Leslie: manual Underwood typewriter, like just, and it was just so like my little, little fingers, right?

[00:01:57] Mark Leslie: Because I was a little skinny guy and I had to [00:02:00] really lean into it. And by the time I was 15, I'd actually written my, uh, you know, it started writing stories. I had submitted my first story for a contest, CBC radio, kind of like BBC, but Canadian. So that sort of quality. And, and I realized that they're not going to want a horror story.

[00:02:19] Mark Leslie: They definitely let me know they did not want my horror story. So that was my first rejection. So I've kind of knew I wanted to be a writer from my early teens. And I started taking it seriously around the age of 14, 15. [00:02:30] 

[00:02:30] Teddy: And have you still got that first story that you sold? 

[00:02:33] Mark Leslie: I the first story that got rejected.

[00:02:35] Mark Leslie: Yeah. And I, the first one that I sold wasn't until 1992. So I'd started in the, in the, I guess, early, mid eighties and then my first published work wasn't until 92. So years and years of constant rejections. So I have, yes, I have folders filled with, I still have that. I still have the notes and all the things and most of the rejections that I've received too.

[00:02:58] Teddy: I spoke to Kevin J. Anderson last week, and [00:03:00] he said he was threatening to release his first story. One day, but, 

[00:03:05] Mark Leslie: and he read it, he read the first story at the master's program in Western in July, this summer to, to the audience, just so they could see that, and I think he wrote that when he was 14 or something.

[00:03:16] Mark Leslie: Yeah. 

[00:03:17] Teddy: Something like that. Yeah. Amazing. Now we'll start with your fiction books. So your fiction books are mostly in sort of the non, in the The horror category, aren't they? So yeah, was it always horror you wanted to write about? 

[00:03:28] Mark Leslie: Yeah, for some, I was a [00:03:30] skinny little kid afraid of everything, afraid of the dark, afraid of the monster under my bed and the one in my closet though.

[00:03:36] Mark Leslie: Definitely there was one under the stairs, you know, so when you come running upstairs, you had to go really fast so the monster didn't grab you. And I think, My imagination always went to the dark places. It always wanted to know, well, I can't see what's in that dark corner. What if there's something there?

[00:03:52] Mark Leslie: And, and so I started to explore that. And I remember my mom saying, Mark, why can't you write a nice story? She read [00:04:00] Harlequin Romances. that was her fix, right? Like she read like a book or two a day. And she loved, she loved that genre, but it was, yeah, it was always drawn to the dark side for some reason.

[00:04:10] Mark Leslie: No, I mean, most of the stuff that I write now, it's, it's funny. I haven't really gotten back into horror because over the last 5 or 6 years, I've been writing an urban fantasy series. And that's been taking a lot of my fictional time. Every once in a while I'll stick a horror fiction short story. But I'm just in the process of, of re releasing the first [00:04:30] book I ever published One Hand Screaming.

[00:04:31] Mark Leslie: I've got like a triple sized expanded edition 20 year anniversary version of it, and it's been so fun to dig back into my horror because I just, for that one, I'm only using my horror pieces, not, not the other short fiction that's more speculative and general in nature. 

[00:04:48] Teddy: Right. Okay. And this is all in the the Canadian werewolf series.

[00:04:52] Mark Leslie: Well, yeah, Canadian werewolf series is the urban fantasy series. Yeah, that, and again, it's not, it's kind of funny. I was talking to someone at a horror con I was at [00:05:00] this weekend and I said, well, it's not really horror. It's, it's humorous urban fantasy. Cause it's kind of funny that the guy wakes up naked with a bullet in his leg and the taste of blood in his mouth.

[00:05:07] Mark Leslie: And he has no idea what's happening. And he's trying desperately to, cause he lives in Manhattan, trying desperately to scramble, to find any discarded clothing. So he's naked and it's embarrassing and he's more of a superhero because he has enhanced powers. So I was like, but it's not really horror.

[00:05:23] Mark Leslie: He's like, yeah, well, the guy's a, well, he turns into a wolf. I'm like, yeah, but it's not like this dangerous werewolf, half man, half [00:05:30] human that goes around and terrorizes people. Calling it horror, I mean, calling it horror because there's a werewolf in it, sure, calling it horror because there's some really nasty bad guys in it you know, based on Hitler's desire to create a super race, and some of the paranormal stuff, I read an academic text called Hitler's monsters a few years ago, that was a 800 page academic text about Hitler's monsters.

[00:05:55] Mark Leslie: About the third right and all of the paranormal stuff they did all of the [00:06:00] mysticism and it was like, wow, they were, they were really trying to really make werewolves and other creatures like that. 

[00:06:06] Teddy: I didn't, I didn't know that. That's yeah, it was fascinating. 

[00:06:10] Mark Leslie: Yeah. 

[00:06:11] Teddy: What because I love the second one was that kind of historical fiction.

[00:06:14] Teddy: That's like my that's my thing. My favorites of genres. Yeah, well, 

[00:06:17] Mark Leslie: look up the book. Hitler's monsters. It was done by an academic press. So I mean, it's not it's relatively dry in that. It's very academic in nature. 

[00:06:25] Yeah. 

[00:06:25] Mark Leslie: And but it really digs into all of the all of the evidence [00:06:30] of of the various involvement of various people.

[00:06:34] Mark Leslie: Under Hitler were engaged in kind of like when you hear about Arthur Conan Doyle and the escape artist. I'm drawing a blank. Most famous escape artist in the world. Houdini. 

[00:06:45] Yeah, 

[00:06:46] Mark Leslie: that they were really involved in in sort of paranormal stuff and wanting to do seances like that. Right? Okay. So it was just so fascinating to read.

[00:06:55] Mark Leslie: It took me a long time. I think it was, I listened to the audio book and it's like a 24 [00:07:00] hour audio book or something. 

[00:07:03] Teddy: Quite a big commitment. 

[00:07:05] Mark Leslie: Yeah. 

[00:07:06] Teddy: Do you use a lot of things like that book for inspiration for your writing? Or is that, was that kind of a one off? 

[00:07:12] Mark Leslie: Yeah, no, no.

[00:07:13] Mark Leslie: I mean, whether, I mean, I do write true ghost stories, right? I've got haunted hospitals creepy capital, which is Ottawa, our, our nation's capital here in Canada, haunted Hamilton, et cetera. Whether I'm doing a nonfiction book for ghost stories or, or I'm writing fiction, [00:07:30] I'm constantly referencing true tech nonfiction texts.

[00:07:35] Mark Leslie: So even in my, in my Canadian werewolf series. Okay. So he's a wolf. All right. I mean, I did have to do some research into what kind of wolf I wanted him to be. Like he's a full wolf and in looking at various wolf legends and stuff like that from around the world, but then even locations and various people he encounters who, who have a profession and would know something about this thing that they're talking about.

[00:07:58] Mark Leslie: Yeah. So I, I'm [00:08:00] constantly. I'm constantly doing research, whether it's for a nonfiction book or it's for fiction, because even, I mean, in one of my, one of my horror stories, the exquisite taste of a book aged skull is I was, I understand beer because I'm a big craft beer advocate and so, you know, barrel aged beer and stuff like that and the process, but, and, you know, I've gone on beer tours and learned a little bit about it, but when I was writing the story About that where someone's using a skull in a similar way to seek in soak up the [00:08:30] knowledge, the leftover remnants, like remnants of the bourbon into the beer.

[00:08:34] Mark Leslie: I went in and actually read more about the process and how it works and why they do that and why they keep these, you know, bourbon barrels or whatever, the various liquor barrels. And wine, wine and stuff like that. So, yeah. So even in a fun, goofy horror story there's, there's, there's still some research involved.

[00:08:52] Teddy: Yeah. I think you can really tell in the characters when you read books where the research has been done. I think like it brings so much more color to the, to [00:09:00] the whole story. 

[00:09:01] Mark Leslie: Yeah. 

[00:09:03] Teddy: Now with your do you have a particular approach to writing? Like, do you have a a way of structuring your stories, for example, that you use for every book you write?

[00:09:11] Mark Leslie: I mean, roughly I, I don't, I don't outline when it comes to fiction. When it comes to fiction, I tend to know some of the milestones. I know some of the elements I want. I may make some notes. I make notes of a characters and for sure about who they are, some of their background and stuff, whether or not that gets revealed in the story.

[00:09:29] Mark Leslie: I have it [00:09:30] for myself because it may, it may be pertinent later later on because I'm writing a series. I very, yeah, I don't outline. So I get up early in the morning. I put on the coffee, I feed the pets and I try to get my creative stuff done early, right? Between quarter to six in the morning and maybe 8 AM is when I can get my most creative work done now, unless I'm on deadline, if I'm on deadline, that just takes up more of the day, but my other rest of my regular day.

[00:09:57] Mark Leslie: The rest of the time is done all the other [00:10:00] mechanics around writing. I also, I mean, I, I consult in the book industry. So I do a lot of that day job style work where I'm working with other people and helping other writers are working with draft to digital and helping doing stuff for them in terms of the nonfiction, it's a lot more structured.

[00:10:17] Mark Leslie: So with a nonfiction book, if it's a book about, Ghost stories of a particular locale, like, to of terror, haunted bookstores and libraries. You know, I've got like spreadsheet that says, okay, here are the, the things that the chapters are gonna be about and [00:10:30] here's where I need to go get my research. And when I co-author, it's like, okay, you're, this is your chapter.

[00:10:34] Mark Leslie: This is my chapter. Yeah. You know, just like the estimation. So there is a bit of a, of a high level outline. And then even in my books that I write for writers, again, I, I break it down and I say, okay, usually a spreadsheet and say. What are the topics I want to cover? And then I can explode them into sub subsections of a chapter.

[00:10:55] Mark Leslie: And, and yeah, so it's the nonfiction really demands more of that structure. [00:11:00] The fiction it's as Dean Wesley Smith says, I'm more writing into the dark with an idea of where I'm going to get to hopefully sometimes it changes, but for the most part, the end is kind of what I envisioned or the end. Is a natural evolution of what the characters decide while they're in the moment.

[00:11:18] Mark Leslie: And it's funny, I often just let them decide. It sounds weird, but it's like, I wouldn't do this, but this is what they might do. 

[00:11:26] Teddy: Yeah, so if you're doing it that way, do you have to do quite a lot of editing at the end [00:11:30] to make sure that what you've decided makes sense? Yeah, well, that's 

[00:11:35] Mark Leslie: where that's where the developmental part of the editors that I work with.

[00:11:40] Mark Leslie: That's where that really comes in. The last project I did. Fiction wise was really intriguing because I. This was a self published title, so I delayed the release, and I messed a few things up, and my editor was getting my chapters in the story that I was making up as I was going along, every [00:12:00] day, at the end of the day, they were on the, on the west coast, three hours behind me.

[00:12:04] Mark Leslie: So every morning I would write the next chapter, they would get it, they would edit, make comments, ask questions, say, well, and actually help remind me of the things I screwed up because it wasn't outlined. 

[00:12:16] Yep. 

[00:12:16] Mark Leslie: And then every day I did that. Uh, and that's how I got that, that book done because it was, I needed to get her done to deadline.

[00:12:22] Mark Leslie: And it was such a fascinating process because the editor was. Was helping me in the process of me making it up. [00:12:30] So based on their reactions to certain things, like, Oh, they really like this. I'm going to do more of that. And that was a really unique way to to discover something. 

[00:12:39] Teddy: That's amazing. I've, I've never even thought about writing a book in that way where you've got the edits sort of along the sort of journey with you.

[00:12:45] Teddy: I mean, I don't, I don't know. I did 

[00:12:47] Mark Leslie: that. I did that a few years ago with a horror novel. I death or the first third of the novel. Anyway, I did it on a blog rolled out in real time because it was a journal. It was that epist epistolar delivery. Is that the word that you use [00:13:00] for when it's a journal for former story, and it was over nine months and it was a, it was a suicidal teen who thought he had a death curse.

[00:13:08] Mark Leslie: Everyone he got close to dies. So it's just like this journal blog and the commenters were commenting in real time. Some people thought he was real. And I had a little disclaimer saying this is fiction. And then once, once they realized it was fiction, they played along as if he was real. 

[00:13:22] Right. I incorporated 

[00:13:23] Mark Leslie: them into the story and it was so much fun because if they liked again, if they like something, I, I, I gave them more of [00:13:30] it.

[00:13:30] Mark Leslie: It's kind of like when you're doing improv and the audience likes what you do. So you give them a little bit more. 

[00:13:37] Teddy: That's amazing. I spoke to an author called Christina graves. She's really new last week, but she's really ambitious and she's a horror writer as well. And she's actually releasing a book in the same way.

[00:13:46] Teddy: So she's releasing it via her blog. Like, and then the blog gets deleted so that it can then be turned into a book later on, but her true fans can kind of see the book as it's been developed. 

[00:13:55] Mark Leslie: Yeah. Early. That's such a, what a, and that's the power that we have as writers. 

[00:13:59] [00:14:00] Yeah. 

[00:14:00] Mark Leslie: You know, and when you think about, when you think about how even the way I, because I do, I did a lot of theater.

[00:14:05] Mark Leslie: When you think about how sometimes some of the plays that we, that we did, okay. We don't change the words very much, but we may change the way our act. Way the characters and the actors interact or the facial expressions, because again, with one audience that you have when we were touring a show to different different schools for kids, you picked up on the stuff that they really liked.

[00:14:25] Mark Leslie: And so again, you added a little bit more of it. The next time you did it. 

[00:14:28] Yeah. 

[00:14:29] Mark Leslie: And I remember when [00:14:30] we did the same play in front of primarily adult audiences at a fringe festival. It was weird because we were so used to the kids laughing at certain shtick that we did. Yeah. And the adults didn't laugh at the shtick, but they laughed at the, it's kind of like the Looney Tunes cartoons where my dad would laugh at different aspects of Bugs Bunny and, and you know, Coyote and Boat Runner.

[00:14:49] Mark Leslie: Then I would, as a kid, I was laughing at like the slapstick stuff. And my dad was laughing at the, the jokes that were obviously for adults. So it's so fun when you realize even in the same [00:15:00] work, people can appreciate it in a different way. Yeah, definitely. I thought it was a really nice idea. Going back to your nonfiction books as well.

[00:15:06] Teddy: So a lot of the listeners this to our non fiction authors, like quite a lot, quite a lot actually. And. Whenever I do consulting with non fiction authors, especially if they're doing outlines and they're at that part of the journey, that we kind of try to structure it in a way where it's like you're giving information so that you can then go on and write it or even get help with a ghostwriter to go and write it.

[00:15:26] Teddy: But if you are doing an outline for a non fiction book, you [00:15:30] mentioned it's a bit different to how you would do your fiction one. What level of detail do you go into in your outline before you've written the book? 

[00:15:37] Mark Leslie: I'm, I'm, I'm pretty light in terms of the outline. So I'll take, and I, and I'm a fan of spreadsheets because Google sheets works great when, when you're doing over the coauthor, which is critical because you have to know where the other person is.

[00:15:49] Mark Leslie: I don't need to know where I am. I do in nonfiction, but I break it down. I usually start in the first column. It's like the high level. Theme of what I want to, what I want to talk about [00:16:00] and then, and then I'll, I'll write a line or two and a description over to the right, just to see what that chapter is going to be.

[00:16:08] Mark Leslie: And then sometimes I'll find sub topics within the topic and feel for the reader for me as well. I need to break this into five chunks. And here are the five chunks, and in each chunk, I may write a line or two, but that's kind of it, or sometimes even just the title itself is more descriptive, and it may not be the title I end up using, [00:16:30] but it's descriptive, and that usually gives me enough, and then, in the process of writing, so the funny part is, in the process of writing, that outline is not set in stone, right, it's not written in ink, It is malleable and it's changeable.

[00:16:46] Mark Leslie: And so while I'm writing a chapter, I may go, Oh, this, I thought this was a subset of this, but it's really its own chapter. So then I go back to the spreadsheet and I read, I rearrange it. And then the other thing I also do is I, I have a, I estimate what my word count like, Oh, [00:17:00] okay, this subsection is going to be, 500 words, 500 words, 500 words, 500 words.

[00:17:04] Mark Leslie: So this chapter is going to be about 3000 words in total. Like this introduction is going to be here. This is going to be there. And, and, and so it's really funny that even though I start with an outline by the time I finished the book, or at least the first draft of the book, it's changed. And then after, after the editor tends to see it and they have questions.

[00:17:25] Mark Leslie: Their questions may lead me to go, Oh, maybe I need to put this here instead of there, because [00:17:30] I need to clarify this before they get to the other point. 

[00:17:34] Teddy: That makes sense. So if you are doing cause obviously you've got the book the relaxed author with Joanna Penn and which was one of the, yeah, really good book.

[00:17:42] Teddy: And I love Joanna Penn's podcast, obviously as well. What was it like working with her and that writing process with your outline? Like how did, was it basically the exact process you just followed? So no, no, not at all. So that, that was the most unique book I've ever written. So, I mean, Joe and I have been friends for a number of years.

[00:17:59] Mark Leslie: [00:18:00] You know, we only get together maybe once, twice a year when traveling to the same conferences together. It was a lot easier when I was, I was going to Europe a lot and I was at London book fair and stuff like that. I would see her more frequently, but she's coming, she's coming this way a little, a lot more lately.

[00:18:15] Mark Leslie: And it was the result of. I was on a podcast and we were joking about the, Oh, it sounds like it could be a book, the relaxed author. And I was joking about putting on like a you know, sitting around the house with a, with a robe on and just all [00:18:30] relaxed, calm. And, and, and it's funny cause I'm, I'm very high strung, right?

[00:18:34] Mark Leslie: So it was just a joke. And then her listener said, Oh, if you guys wrote that book, we would. We would read it and, and then Joe and I, like, there was so many comments that Joe pinged me in an email saying, you know, what do you think? And I said, yeah, cool. But neither one of us had the time because we had already packed our schedules with stuff we wanted to do.

[00:18:56] Mark Leslie: And so the way we wrote this book was we got on zoom. [00:19:00] We probably did between six and nine hours of zoom conversations. So what joe is very structured. She's very organized. She's very, she, she, she loves that. So she did kind of structure. Okay. This.

[00:19:16] Mark Leslie: And so she sort of had some outlines of questions and things like that, and we just talked. And so the 1st, like, we took about 6 hours of that conversation, send it to her transcriber and the, and they [00:19:30] transcribed it to me. Our conversation. And that was our, our very, very, very, very first draft. And then we went in and edited it and then, and then back and forth, back and forth.

[00:19:39] Mark Leslie: And then we moved stuff around because, and, and Joe is such a great project manager, like she really, she really she really nails the timeline down in a, in a really incredible structure. So Joe Julie Strauss is an author I've worked with. Who's also very organized and very structured. I think it's kind of funny because you think we would want to kill each other because I'm so [00:20:00] disorganized and they're so organized and they plan ahead.

[00:20:03] Mark Leslie: But I think it, I mean, I, I learned through, through somebody I respect, I learned why this is a good thing. And, and, and it actually made me a little bit more organized. So the, the, the goodness in the organizational skills of, of people like Joanna, I have really rubbed off on me in a really positive way.

[00:20:24] Teddy: That's funny that she's that organized. Cause in my head, she's really, really organized as well. So it's funny that [00:20:30] in real life, it's exactly the same. 

[00:20:32] Mark Leslie: Oh, no, she, she's really she, she's really on top of things as well. Whereas I just kind of show up and go, okay. You're a panther. 

[00:20:41] Teddy: That's, that's one of the industry times pretty much seat 

[00:20:44] Mark Leslie: of my pants.

[00:20:45] Mark Leslie: That's kind of how I, I live my life. Yeah. I know j go back, just going back a few minutes, you were talking about your like daily routine. Was that something that you purposefully implemented or that you learned from like reading a particular book, or is it just something that just works for you?

[00:20:59] Mark Leslie: [00:21:00] Well, I had to do it because writing was important to me and I. My father was a fisherman. So he was up at the crack of dawn. He was the guy who woke up the rooster that woke up the sun, that kind of stuff. So I inherited that from him and that's nurture over nature because I was adopted. So I inherited that desire.

[00:21:22] Mark Leslie: But it was also such a beautiful time of the day because everyone else is sleeping. You have the whole world to yourself practically, right? But I had to do [00:21:30] it because I was working full time and if I wanted to get writing done, I needed to make time to write. So it's like, okay, I normally get up at this time and it takes me an hour to get ready for work and I go.

[00:21:40] Mark Leslie: If I get up an hour earlier, I can write for an hour, then get ready for work, then go. And, and so structuring that writing time into my day was good. The other thing about me, cause I'm easily distracted when no one else is awake. You know, I, I did, I did a novel on the, on a go train, which is a train, a commuter train that would take me [00:22:00] into Toronto Ontario for work.

[00:22:02] Mark Leslie: And I was on the train for about an hour and 45 minutes every morning. And no wifi back then. Now there is wifi on the, on the commuter trains, but no wifi was perfect. Open up my laptop and the battery would last just long enough for me to get like a chapter done or something. And and that was, that kind of structure is really important to me because I need to start when I start my day off, getting stuff done, not opening email, not doing anything.

[00:22:27] Mark Leslie: And I purposely try not to [00:22:30] get distracted by all the other things in my life. Try to go, okay, I put it on my calendar. I say, okay, between six and seven 30, I'm going to write. And, and I will, I will occasionally dip out of it to go do research. And then, but sometimes the research that is supposed to be five minutes takes 15 or 20 because.

[00:22:50] Mark Leslie: You know, I'm gonna squirrel. 

[00:22:55] Teddy: Yeah, there's a, there's a, there's a British comedian called Sarah Millican and I was listening to her [00:23:00] podcast recently and she was talking about how she used to do exactly the same thing, going to work early and just use the work computer to like, get her like standups routine set up.

[00:23:08] Teddy: Yeah, yeah. When I worked for Kobo, I would go in super, I would get in there like an hour and a half before anyone, but when I started driving and I had to, if I, otherwise I'd be stuck in traffic for two hours and I could, it could be a 45 minute drive if I left at, I was leaving at 5 30 in the morning and then people didn't get there till eight.

[00:23:27] Mark Leslie: So I'm there from 6 30 till eight. And so I [00:23:30] could get some writing done, but I could also actually even get other work done before other people showed up because the work I needed to do, I needed to do thinking work. And then I managed a team. So my team weren't there yet. Well, my team in Europe, I had a couple two or three team members overseas.

[00:23:45] Mark Leslie: So they were online so I could communicate with them. But then once the, the local team came into the office, my job was pretty much caring for them. And so the thinking work couldn't happen when other people were around. 

[00:23:58] Teddy: Yeah, that's good advice. Eat the frogs, a [00:24:00] great book for people because people love that sort of productivity, porn type stuff.

[00:24:02] Teddy: So it was a great book if you want to do that. 

[00:24:05] Mark Leslie: Yeah. Thank you. I appreciate the recommendation. 

[00:24:08] Teddy: The, so let's go into it. So a couple of your nonfiction books, and I wanted to talk a bit about Kobo, especially, so you've got wide for the win and kill it on Kobo. Two of the best books, I think around that topic.

[00:24:18] Teddy: Now, most of the people we speak to, well, most people I speak to anyway, are like mostly selling on Amazon. I know that it's like pretty obvious. It's like, you know, it's probably done. Biggest, easiest place to settle, [00:24:30] but basically the outline, the output of the books is, or the outcome of the books is that you should be actually trying to go wider and also think about other platforms like Kobo.

[00:24:39] Teddy: So do you want to tell us a little bit about Kobo? Cause it might be a bit. Yeah, yeah, sure. 

[00:24:42] Mark Leslie: I mean, so Amazon, no, no doubt about it. Amazon's the world's biggest bookstore and it primarily dominate in the US and the UK market. It's huge. Kindle. I mean, even I remember I was in London airport and it didn't say, put your e readers away.

[00:24:56] Mark Leslie: It said, put your Kindles away. Like the way the escalator used to be a brand [00:25:00] name and now it's just all moving staircases are escalators.

[00:25:07] Mark Leslie: But there are some countries around the world where they use Kobo in the same way that they use Kindle to mean e book reader. And, and Kobo born here in Canada was Canada's answer to, to the, to the Kindle and Kobo partners with retailers around the world. So, for example, Montadori in Italy and Fanac in France and, and Bolle in the Netherlands, which in Bolle is Amazon sized in [00:25:30] the Netherlands.

[00:25:30] Mark Leslie: And so Kobo is in more countries around the world than even Amazon. And, and so the whole and the other thing too, is Kobo is, is only, uh, it's only about reading. I was going to say eBooks, but they got into audio books a few years ago. So it's only about reading the whole experience is not about going and buying a refrigerator or, or, or batteries or anything else that you need, like the everything store.

[00:25:55] Mark Leslie: So it's the, it's the only major company. That's worldwide that's focused on reading, [00:26:00] right? Amazon is the everything store Google and Apple are primarily tech companies selling devices and, and, and software. And, and so Kobo is the only other one. Like there's Barnes and Noble, but it's limited to the U.

[00:26:12] Mark Leslie: S. And Kobo is the only company that's really focused on reading. Just reading. It's primarily about reading, and they also have some great partnerships. So with overdrive, which is a library distributor, you can get your books right into overdrive via Kobo writing life, the self publishing platform, and [00:26:30] that's just an easy, an easy pathway into the other markets.

[00:26:33] Mark Leslie: I also leverage like Draft2Digital for, for distribution as well. When, when you don't want to go direct to some other platforms to also get into other library platforms and, and, and the thing about wide is my version of wide is not just Amazon versus five other retailers. My version of widen is very inclusive of all the, all the options working.

[00:26:55] Mark Leslie: And I do work with traditional publishers for some of my books, but selling direct [00:27:00] and, and taking advantage of things like Patreon or Patrion and Kickstarter and other methods of storytelling that go way beyond just putting your book up on a retailer. Because I think we have a, we have an opportunity as writers to directly connect with readers like no other.

[00:27:18] Mark Leslie: Phase in the history of writing and publishing. 

[00:27:22] Teddy: Yeah. Yeah. That Kickstarter stuff's really interesting. I've spoken to a couple of people now. Kevin Anson was one of them. Kevin J Anson, sorry, was one of them I spoke to. He's releasing [00:27:30] his newest book on Kickstarter. Really interesting. Yeah. Um, but with, so with Kobo, what, so compared to like.

[00:27:37] Teddy: It sounds like royalties distribution and that sort of thing compared to Amazon. What's, what's that like? 

[00:27:41] Mark Leslie: Well, actually it's, it's, it's better. So Kobo writing life is the, is the self publishing platform. Now I was hired by Kobo in 2011 to come up with a solution for self publishing. And in 2012 in the, in the summer of 2012 at book expo America, we launched Kobo writing life, which, which was what I think is [00:28:00] the, the first Author centric beautiful, user friendly, so Smashwords had been around from the beginning.

[00:28:06] Mark Leslie: I'd used it as an author, KDP, KDP and Smashwords I'd use, but Cobra Writing Life was, was better and friendlier and easier to use and to navigate, and, and I think that's because it was designed by, I know, I mean, I'm, I'm the non tech user, the tech guys did all the hard work, but I'm not a technical guy, so I needed it to be simple.

[00:28:28] Mark Leslie: Even, even looking at the contracts [00:28:30] and stuff like that. I mean, I, I, the contract, I looked at all the contracts and then I put it in, Proper English for, for us humans, not lawyers. And and then I had the lawyer, lawyer ify it as well. But then I had to help work with her to, to, to please simplify it.

[00:28:46] Mark Leslie: Nobody reads the terms, but I needed, it was important for me that the terms be relatively understandable for the lay person. And, but so the other thing too is the, and, and Kobo set the standard that there's no cap. At 9. 99. So with [00:29:00] KDP, you have a price window of 2. 99 to get your 70%. Now Kobo started the trend, I believe, of, of, of not having a price cap.

[00:29:10] Mark Leslie: And none of the other major retailers have a price cap. Amazon's the only one that forces you to make your book cheap. Like inexpensive. The other thing too, is here's the other thing people don't know is Amazon never actually gives you 70%. They say they're going to give you 70%, but they never give you 70 percent because they penalize you based on the size of your ebook, [00:29:30] because they, they have the whisper, like they have a free wifi that they provide.

[00:29:33] Mark Leslie: So you can always stay connected on your Kindle. And the author pays for that because they take the, the, depending on the file size of your EPUB, they take whatever. I was actually looking at looking at a book recently, and I think I'm making 62%. From Amazon, not 70 percent because of my file size. So, um, so you always get the 70 percent so long as you don't price below 2 99.

[00:29:59] Mark Leslie: [00:30:00] Right. Okay. And 

[00:30:01] Teddy: so your books, I'm guessing are all published on Kobo. Do you, but they're also on Amazon too. Yeah. Yeah. So I, I 

[00:30:07] Mark Leslie: will publish directly to Amazon. I w I usually publish directly to Kobo cause I'm a little bit partial to it. I am Canadian and Kobo is more popular here in Canada. It'd be more likely if you see somebody on the, on the subway or on the bus or whatever if you see them reading an ebook reader, it's more likely it's going to be a Kobo than Kindle.

[00:30:25] Mark Leslie: Yeah. So, Kindles don't exist. But I, I [00:30:30] got sidetracked here. What, what was I supposed to, what question was I supposed to answer? 

[00:30:34] Teddy: Oh, no. Is it talking about you publish your books on Kobo? Oh yeah. Yeah. So I go direct to those 

[00:30:40] Mark Leslie: two. I go direct to Google play partner center, Google, Google books, a partner center, and then I, I typically use draft to digital to get into Apple, Barnes and Noble to Tolino in Germany, Vivio in France, and a whole bunch of library platforms as well.

[00:30:57] Mark Leslie: So, so I kinda, I, I tend to [00:31:00] leverage four different platforms for, Distribution. Then I use book funnel for for example, to, to, to deliver books directly, to be able to buy stuff directly from me, 

[00:31:11] Teddy: but phone was amazing. Yeah. I'm good. I'm chatting to the guy soon. I think good, good. You're going to love 

[00:31:15] Mark Leslie: that.

[00:31:16] Mark Leslie: Damon's Damon's just fantastic. 

[00:31:18] Teddy: Yeah, really good. So if you are publishing on book on Amazon and Kindle, is there anything you need to bear in mind or any rules that you need to follow in order to be published on both? 

[00:31:26] Mark Leslie: Yeah. So a couple of things I think that are really important is, I mean, [00:31:30] I never.

[00:31:31] Mark Leslie: Check off the select KDP select box, which makes your books exclusive because if you do, you're locked in for 90 days and you cannot sell your ebook anywhere. It can't be available in any other retailer, can't be available in libraries, definitely can't sell it yourself. So that's something to be aware of.

[00:31:45] Mark Leslie: The other thing is for authors who have series or they have larger books or maybe nonfiction academic books, and you don't want it to be below 999. With, with a box set, for example, on, on Kobo, on, on Google, on [00:32:00] Apple, on Barnes and Noble, I can have a, let's say it's six books in a series and they each sell for 5 U S we're both not in the U S, but we probably speak us a lot because the industry is driven by a lot of major retailers.

[00:32:14] Mark Leslie: So that would be six times five is 30, right? That would, so what the books would cost on their own. So making that book available for 2199 is a good deal. But on Amazon, you're going to get penalized and they're going to give you 35%, but every other retailer is going to give you a 30. So when I do the big box [00:32:30] sets where the price is going to go beyond nine 99, I don't put that box set on Amazon.

[00:32:35] Mark Leslie: You can still buy all my books separately and Amazon does make it so easy. They have a great you know, a page where you can click one button and buy all the books and they usually offer some sort of discount. So they do that work for me. I'm not penalizing Amazon customers, but I would be penalizing myself if I put that 21 book up on Amazon.

[00:32:52] Mark Leslie: So those big expensive books I publish everywhere except Amazon. Again, I'm not removing any content. That's it's [00:33:00] not, it's not, not available to Amazon customers. It's just not available in that particular price package format. 

[00:33:07] Teddy: Right. Yeah, that makes sense. When you now with you, you're obviously working with Kobo, but so, cause you set up Kobo's writing life.

[00:33:15] Teddy: Yeah, 

[00:33:16] Mark Leslie: I worked there for six years. Yeah. I, I, I left Kobo 2017. I still love them to death, but I still use the platform. 

[00:33:23] Teddy: Yeah. What, what is the Kobo writing life? 

[00:33:27] Mark Leslie: What is Kobo writing life? 

[00:33:29] Teddy: Yeah. 

[00:33:29] Mark Leslie: [00:33:30] Yeah. So it is like Kindle direct publishing. So KDP Kindle direct publishing is where you publish on Amazon. If, if you go to Kobo writing life.

[00:33:37] Mark Leslie: com or if you go to Kobo. com and you, and you scroll down to the bottom where you look for, you know, self publishing, you'll, you'll find the portal into Kobo writing life. So it is just the direct portal. It's a dashboard. It is a beautiful experience. You can convert your word document for free. I mean, the conversion tool is not as good as Draft2Digital's or Amazon's, for example.

[00:33:58] Mark Leslie: But it's, it's a pretty, [00:34:00] it's pretty decent if you've never done it and you don't want to, like, take the EPUB. You can make an EPUB on Draft2Digital, download the EPUB, and then load it to Kobo, for example. But one of the things I love the most about the dashboard, and this is on the classic dashboard, which you still have access to, is it was the first retailer to show you a map of the world and where in the world your book sold, because Kobo is so international.

[00:34:21] Mark Leslie: And, you know, so obviously Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, you know, the Netherlands, [00:34:30] Italy, Spain, all of these countries, you can see, wow, I primarily sell most of my books in the UK and in the U. S. on Amazon, but then if I want to reach outside, it's Kobo and Apple, most likely, and Google, where I'm going to reach audiences outside.

[00:34:46] Mark Leslie: And again, Even smashwords. com, which you can get to through Draft2Digital Smashwords, again, was the first platform that was available in every country in the world and Amazon's not. It's only available in about maybe 20, 25 [00:35:00] countries, which is pretty good, but it's not. The whole world. So there, there are customers out there that aren't going to find your stuff.

[00:35:06] Mark Leslie: And, and I think I know the, the, the, the folks who created Draft2Digital were inspired by the Kobo writing life dashboard and how simple and intuitive it was, so they, they set about to, to make a platform that was just as intuitive. So that was, that was, I mean, it's a real honor when you've designed and created something and somebody else mimics it because, you know, imitation is the most sincere form of [00:35:30] flattery.

[00:35:31] Teddy: Yeah, definitely. Now you also do a lot of consulting alongside your writing at the same time. So what sort of consulting would people want to be hiring you for? 

[00:35:39] Mark Leslie: So, I mean, I I, I will basically, I love focusing on mindset. I love focusing on, on setting and understanding your, your goals, your target audience and, and plans.

[00:35:51] Mark Leslie: And working with authors on better understanding the business of writing and publishing. There's a few things I won't do is, I'm not going to read [00:36:00] somebody's manuscript and advise them. I'm not a good developmental editor. So that's not my forte. I'm not going to be able to help you with that. I'm a slow reader too, so it's going to take forever anyway.

[00:36:09] Mark Leslie: So you may as well go with somebody who's good at it. And then the other thing I don't do is while I advise on marketing and promotion strategies and stuff like that, I will, I don't market for you. Like I'm not going to go and say, Oh, I'll do an Amazon ad for you. No, no. I, so those are some of the things I don't do, but I do love working with authors and just [00:36:30] kind of getting inside where they want to be and what they want to do and advising them.

[00:36:35] Mark Leslie: And the thing that frustrates me the most about this industry is. This isn't a case of, Oh, I did it. You can do it too, because the one aspect, no matter, and I work with authors where I'd look at their stuff and they're saying, Hey, I've got, this is, this is my product. I've got the series. I've been publishing it for a few years and I need to see where I'm going, where I'm going wrong.

[00:36:55] Mark Leslie: And I look at what they've done. I look at the covers. They're completely on point for the [00:37:00] genre. I look at the descriptions and the sales copy. It's magnificent. I look at the reviews they've received from the people who've loved their stuff. I look at everything they're doing. I look at the price points.

[00:37:10] Mark Leslie: I look at the structure, the release strategy. Is it killing them? Okay. They own a treadmill. They're not going to be able to sustain in the longterm. And I, and I go, I can't find anything wrong with what you're doing. You just have to keep doing it because the one thing, the one thing we can't control is that luck.

[00:37:26] Mark Leslie: Right. You can, you can have like a dozen authors all doing the same thing. Just do [00:37:30] writing the most magnificent books. They're polished, they're edited, they're perfect. And one of them gets lucky and is suddenly a six and seven figure author because something that they couldn't control happened. And I think what frustrates me a lot is sometimes somebody where that happens, they make the mistake of thinking, Oh, it was that thing I did just before I, I got successful.

[00:37:49] Mark Leslie: So now I'm going to sell that to everyone as the one magic bullet. That's going to, it's going to change everything. Well, I've been in the book industry since 1992, and I've been writing [00:38:00] for 40 years, and fortunately, I've never had that magic bullet stroke of luck. I've had a long, slow, steady, continually increasing, and sometimes decreasing, as it comes and goes, the territory.

[00:38:15] Mark Leslie: So I recognize the value of persistence, patience, and practice as three of the hallmarks of success for authors. Yeah, brilliant. And so with marketing, are there any particular marketing tactics that you've been using recently that [00:38:30] have been particularly successful? 

[00:38:31] Mark Leslie: So the, the tactics that I use that tend to work the best tend to be a temporary price drop 99 cents or free through the paid promotion newsletters, like book Bob written word media fussy library, like all of those, all of those various platforms that are available and, and the wide ones, not the Amazon only ones.

[00:38:52] Mark Leslie: That's a tactic that works really, really well. Free first in series is something that still works. I tend to only do it in [00:39:00] limited chunks. I don't try not to do perma free as well, because I do know from my work at Kobo that most people who take a free book will never open it. It's a confirmation bias thing.

[00:39:10] Mark Leslie: It's like, I'm going to grab it cause it's free, but I don't care. At least 99 cents confirmation bias is going to be more likely to read it. Because I actually had to invest in it. So you don't get as many people downloading it, which gets us all excited because we trend and, Oh, I'm in the top 10 or I'm number one.

[00:39:28] Mark Leslie: Who cares if nobody reads [00:39:30] it? It's basically the, the stats show that less than 3 percent of people who ever download a free book, read it in the first six to nine weeks. So, so you have to remember that. So, regularly doing the promotions sometimes reminds them they already have the book on their Kindle or their Kobo or their Nook or whatever they're reading it on.

[00:39:46] Mark Leslie: The other thing that I think a lot of writers miss is they get so excited about wanting to get into the selling part in the marketing that they forget that they're, they should be marketing to a very unique, exclusive group. And I'll give you an example, personal [00:40:00] example. With my horror titles, I recognize that horror is not everyone's cup of tea, it's nowhere near as popular, I mean, not even in the same universe as romance and mystery and stuff like domestic thrillers and stuff like that that appeals to a much broader audience, so I've got a very, very narrow audience.

[00:40:17] Mark Leslie: I travel with a skeleton, for example, Barnaby Bones, so I've got Barnaby Bones beside me, so you come to a bookshop and you see me sitting there with a skeleton and I've got my skull shirt on and whatever. If you're not a horror guy, [00:40:30] you know, to avoid making eye contact with the crazy bald guy, right? You know, that's not your cup of tea.

[00:40:36] Mark Leslie: You're off. You're like, okay, good. I got my note. This is not for me. But for people who love the macabre, they, they come rushing over. It's like a beacon. It's like, come on, come on in. I'm your, I'm your guy. I got you covered here. This is your cup of tea. 

[00:40:50] Yeah. 

[00:40:51] Mark Leslie: And I think focusing on. The niche more and, and letting like just focusing on that area of that, you know, if I go [00:41:00] to a conference and somebody comes in and says hey, tell me what your books is like, well, what do you like?

[00:41:05] Mark Leslie: What do you, cause I, cause I do write a lot of different things. Nonfiction, true ghost stories. I have urban fantasy. I have horror. I have books for writers as well, right? So I have, and even just sort of twilight. Yeah. And I even have some family friendly stuff, just speculative fiction. So they tell me what they like.

[00:41:23] Mark Leslie: If they say, I really like historical romance. I'm like, well, tell you what, you're wasting your time talking to me. Like, but, [00:41:30] and this is an important aspect that writers forget about. We're all in this together. It's like, I don't have any historical romance. Like the closest I get to history is my true ghost story books.

[00:41:39] Mark Leslie: Cause you can't tell a good ghost story without history. But if you want historical romance, Oh my God, I got a friend. I just, I was chatting with her earlier today. She's at the table just over there in the corner there. You've got to go talk to her. She has the best as well. Cause here's the thing about that.

[00:41:53] Mark Leslie: What I did is I helped that reader connect with the right writer instead of me, instead of making a [00:42:00] single sale, that's she's never going to read and she's probably going to have a bad taste in her mouth. Connect her to the right person and then maybe if she's talking to another friend who goes, yeah, I'm really looking for something spooky and scary.

[00:42:10] Mark Leslie: I have something great for Halloween. He's like, oh, I was talking to the bald guy with the skeleton over there. Go see him. You know what I mean? Like that's indirect marketing by providing value to a reader that has nothing to do with your books. Yeah, and I think we get so hung up on, I want to sell my books, I want to sell my books that we forget it's really about [00:42:30] pleasing the reader and giving the reader something of value.

[00:42:33] Mark Leslie: And if we can focus on the reader first, when we think about our marketing, we're more likely to get a win, even if it's not a short term win, but the longer term win. 

[00:42:44] Teddy: Yeah, yeah, that's great advice. And I love that you address the job that you want, you know, really. Do you think it's that horror? That's right.

[00:42:51] Teddy: Yeah. 

[00:42:53] Mark Leslie: And a lot of people go, but you're so nice. I'm like, yeah, it's therapy. I just put all my anger and everything into the horror. [00:43:00] 

[00:43:00] Teddy: Also, you don't know me that well, so I might not be as nice as I look. 

[00:43:03] Mark Leslie: Yeah, yeah, that's right. Yeah. It's like,

[00:43:08] Teddy: well, thanks so much for saying, I think, yeah, people get loads of out of listening to this today. Now, I think if people want to get in touch to speak to you about your consulting, where's the best place to get in touch with you? 

[00:43:18] Mark Leslie: Yeah. If you go to mark Leslie dot CA there's actually a thing that says consulting and I'll do a free 20 minutes with anyone you book a zoom session.

[00:43:25] Mark Leslie: And if, if we can answer your questions and solve your problems in 20 minutes, I am so happy [00:43:30] because maybe I saved you hours of pain or worse having to, having to pay for something that you're not sure of. And then if you like me and I've offered you some useful advice, then I do, I do charge for hour long sessions and we can do a longer term work together.

[00:43:45] Teddy: Great. Yeah, that's so generous to offer the free 20 minutes. And that's just like through your website, marklesley. ca, isn't it? Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Yeah. Brilliant. And then you also, you're also on Reedsy as well. So a lot of, you know, you've got to be good. Yeah. Yeah. I actually, 

[00:43:58] Mark Leslie: I think I put a pause [00:44:00] on the Reedsy only cause I had way too many tire kickers.

[00:44:03] Mark Leslie: And it was, it took me a lot of time. Cause when someone put up an RFP, I actually looked in and I probably spent 45 minutes trying to come up with something custom for them. And I realized I was wasting hours and hours. And most of the people were just kicking tires and weren't really serious. And I was like, I don't have time for that, unfortunately.

[00:44:20] Mark Leslie: So it's easier for me to give people 20 minutes of my time than it is to waste time coming up with something for them and then, and then not getting a gig out of it. [00:44:30] 

[00:44:30] Teddy: Great. That's really good. With your next book. So what's your next projects you've got coming up that you're working on? Well, I've 

[00:44:35] Mark Leslie: got a book in hand is my next nonfiction book that's coming out for writers.

[00:44:39] Mark Leslie: It's basically the power of actual physical product and getting those physical products in the customer's hands, whether it's through online retailers selling directly on your website. Or doing a lot of in person events. And then of course I've got the 20th anniversary of one hand screaming launching in, in October of 2024.

[00:44:58] Mark Leslie: And I'm, I'm really excited because I'm, [00:45:00] I'm digging back into my, my roots. There's a collaborative beer called one hop screaming that a local brewery is doing and we're launching the beer and the book together. So, October is of course my favorite. My favorite month of the year you know, Halloween is my favorite month of the year.

[00:45:14] Mark Leslie: I should say 

[00:45:17] Teddy: it's not quite so bad in the UK. We, we only have a couple of days of it, but I was in the U S once for Halloween and it was completely nuts. 

[00:45:23] Mark Leslie: Well, most people only take it seriously like the couple of days before, but I take, I start taking it seriously. The minute August [00:45:30] is over. Okay.

[00:45:30] Mark Leslie: Halloween mood. 

[00:45:31] Teddy: Yeah. This is your spring break. It's like the big time of the year for you. Yeah, 

[00:45:34] Mark Leslie: exactly. Yeah. 

[00:45:36] Teddy: Well, thanks so much for today. That's been, it's been a really great session. I think people have got loads out of listening to it. Just one last question we've got. So, so what's the one book that you recommend everyone should be reading?

[00:45:47] Mark Leslie: Yeah, yeah. There, there's a book that I recommend particularly for writers as well. Jane Friedman wrote this book called the business of being a writer. And what I love about Jane Friedman is she knows the [00:46:00] traditional publishing industry really, really well, but she also knows the self and indie publishing Industry very well.

[00:46:08] Mark Leslie: She's one of the very few people in the world. I, I like to say I'm one of them who understands both sides really, really well. And Jane is absolutely brilliant. And her book, the business of being a writer is a phenomenal. Book for writers to completely understand the industry. She is, I believe very soon I think this year, the second edition is coming out imminently if it's [00:46:30] not already out.

[00:46:30] Mark Leslie: And I, I can't wait to get my hands on it. Cause even though I read the first edition, I'm going to consume the second edition so quickly. So, that is a, that is a fantastic book. I remember listening to it going, wow, somebody who actually gets all angles as opposed to just a siloed piece of the industry, 

[00:46:49] Teddy: Really great tip.

[00:46:50] Teddy: I haven't, I don't know that book. So that's that's, that's something I, I definitely could be on put my list now. Um, but yeah, thank you so much for today. Yeah, hopefully we'll see you soon. [00:47:00] 

[00:47:00] Mark Leslie: Yeah. Thanks, Teddy. Have a great one. Bye.