The KWL podcast is the flagship of the free education offering. With hundreds of episodes and biweekly updates, it is one of the longest-running author education podcasts in the indie publishing space. Episodes feature author interviews — bestsellers, genre specialists, and working indie authors at all career stages — alongside craft and business discussions led by the Kobo team.

The podcast is particularly valuable for its international perspective. While most indie author education is implicitly US-centric (Amazon KDP, the US dollar, US tax forms), the KWL podcast regularly covers the specifics of publishing for European readers, Canadian markets, and other non-US audiences. For wide authors, this makes it nearly irreplaceable.

Recent episodes have covered AI narration (including the practical mechanics of where AI-narrated audiobooks can be distributed and which platforms accept them), romantasy and genre trends driven by international BookTok communities, and the practical business of going wide after a period of KU exclusivity.

The Kobo Writing Life Blog

The KWL blog covers everything from publishing how-tos to marketing strategy to Kobo-specific promotional opportunities. The blog is the best place to understand Kobo's promotional programs — which require an eye-catching professional cover and specific eligibility criteria — and how to position your titles to be considered.

Practical topics covered include: how to price ebooks for different international markets, how Kobo Plus (Kobo's subscription service) affects author income, how to upload audiobooks directly through the KWL dashboard, and how to optimize your metadata for Kobo's search algorithm.

The KWL Help Centre — A Complete Step-by-Step Guide

The Kobo Writing Life Help Centre is genuinely excellent — one of the most complete, clearly written platform-specific publishing guides in the indie space. It walks authors through account creation, ebook upload, pricing by market, promotional eligibility, audiobook distribution, and sales reporting. For any author setting up their KWL account for the first time, the Help Centre is the right starting point.

ℹ️  Kobo Plus — Kobo's subscription service — is now available in multiple countries. Authors enrolled in Kobo Plus earn per-page-read income similar to Kindle Unlimited, but they can participate while still distributing wide on other platforms. Understanding Kobo Plus enrollment eligibility and income mechanics is covered in the Help Centre and several recent podcast episodes.

Mark Leslie Lefebvre — The Voice of KWL Education

For several years, Mark Leslie Lefebvre served as the Director of Self-Publishing and Author Relations at Kobo, and was the primary voice of Kobo Writing Life's educational content. He left Kobo to become Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital, but his books and podcast appearances remain the most comprehensive third-party guide to the wide publishing ecosystem.

Lefebvre has written several books specifically valuable for wide-publishing authors — including Killing It on Kobo, Wide for the Win, and Navigating Indie — which cover platform-specific optimization far beyond what any official guide covers. For authors serious about wide publishing, Lefebvre's books are the natural companion to the official KWL resources.

Notably, Lefebvre is a personal friend and long-time supporter of ScribeCount — making his resources particularly relevant to the ScribeCount author community.

Wide for the Win — The Community Resource

Alongside the official KWL resources, the Wide for the Win Facebook group (founded by Erin Wright) is the most active community for authors publishing beyond Amazon. With thousands of members actively sharing strategies, promotion results, and platform-specific insights, it is the best ongoing source of peer-tested information for wide authors.

Tracking Your Results with ScribeCount

📊  Every course teaches strategies. ScribeCount shows you whether those strategies are working — in real numbers, across every platform you publish on.

ScribeCount is the ideal companion for wide publishing authors — it is one of the only platforms that tracks revenue and performance across Kobo, Apple Books, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and every other wide platform in a single dashboard. While KWL gives you the strategy and platform knowledge, ScribeCount's Sales Dashboard shows you how your Kobo titles are actually performing alongside your other platforms. The Sunburst Chart makes it immediately visible what percentage of your income comes from Kobo versus Amazon versus direct — the data that wide publishing decisions depend on.

Final Verdict

The Kobo Writing Life blog, podcast, and help centre constitute an exceptional free education resource for wide publishing authors. The podcast's international perspective fills a genuine gap in most indie author education. For any author who publishes or is considering publishing wide, engaging with the KWL ecosystem is not optional — it is how you understand the platform and the market it serves. Pair the official KWL resources with Mark Leslie Lefebvre's books and the Wide for the Win community for a complete wide publishing education.

✅  Bottom Line: The essential free education resource for wide publishing authors. The podcast is the best ongoing source of international market insight available to indie authors — subscribe today.

About the Author

Hello, I'm Randall Wood. When I'm not pounding the keyboard or entertaining my giant dog, I like to build tools for my fellow indie authors. In these articles, you'll find lessons learned over sixteen years spent in the indie author world. I share it all here to help you get one step closer to where you want to be.

More at randallwoodauthor.com