Publishing Wide But Shallow

The Mistake That's Costing You Readers and Revenue

I’ve been talking to authors about publishing wide for well over a decade now. I’ve written books about it, spoken about it at conferences around the world, and spent years inside the Kobo and Draft2Digital operations watching how it all works from the inside.

For anyone who is not familiar with the term, publishing “wide” is seen as the alternative to publishing one’s eBooks exclusively to Amazon via KDP Select—the promise of being exclusive to Amazon is what allows a self-published book to be in Amazon’s KU (Kindle Unlimited) reading program.

And I keep seeing authors making the same mistakes.

Authors hear the message about not putting all their eggs in one basket. They nod along with the logic. They agree that relying on a single platform for their entire livelihood is risky. So they make the decision to go wide.

Then they upload their books to Apple Books, Kobo, Nook, Google Play, and a handful of other platforms either direct or through a distributor—and they stop there.

They’ve gone wide, technically. But they’ve gone wide the way someone might “learn French” by downloading Duolingo and never opening it.

I call this Publishing Wide But Shallow. And it might be one of the most common and costly mistakes in indie publishing today.

What Does Wide But Shallow Look Like?

Here’s a scenario I see play out constantly in author forums and Facebook groups.

An author decides to leave KDP Select or at least dip a toe into the wider marketplace. They set up distribution to multiple platforms. Maybe they go direct to a couple of storefronts and use a distributor like Draft2Digital or PublishDrive for the rest. Their books are now technically available to readers on Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play, and Smashwords in most countries around the world, as well as on Nook in the USA, and also through various library systems worldwide.

And then they continue to do everything the same way they’ve always done it.

Their website features nothing but Amazon links. Their social media posts drive readers exclusively to Kindle. Their newsletter promotions point to a single storefront. Their ad spend goes entirely into Amazon Marketing Services. Their ARC team reviews only on Amazon. Their newsletter swap partners are all KDP Select exclusive authors.

Then, a few months later, they pop into a wide-focused group and say something along the lines of: “I went wide six months ago and I’m barely selling anything on the other platforms. Wide doesn’t work.”

Wide isn’t what’s failing them. What’s failing them is that they never actually tried it.

The biggest challenge is that what it comes down to is that it’s a mindset problem.

Publishing wide is not merely a logistical exercise. It’s not a box you tick by distributing your eBook to multiple retailers. It’s a complete mindset and behavioral shift in how you think about your publishing business.

If you’ve spent months or years learning how to succeed on a single platform—studying its algorithms, mastering its advertising tools, understanding how its recommendation engine works—you’ve built up a deep, intuitive understanding of that ecosystem. That knowledge is valuable, and nobody is asking you to throw it away.

But you also need to recognize that none of those platform-specific skills automatically transfer to other retailers. Each storefront operates differently. Each one has its own culture, its own customers, and its own internal logic for how books get discovered and sold.

The shift from exclusive to wide isn’t just about where your books are listed. It’s about where your attention goes. It’s about where your marketing dollars flow. It’s about how you talk about your books and which readers you’re speaking to.

If you put your books on five platforms but still direct ninety-nine percent of your energy toward one of them, you haven’t gone wide. You’ve gone wide in name only. Or, to put it another way, you’ve gone wide but shallow, rather than wide and deep.

This comes down to a side effect that I call The Amazon-Centric Blind Spot

One of the most insidious habits that carries over from an exclusive mindset is treating Amazon like the default—the center of gravity around which everything else orbits.

Consider what happens when a merchandiser at Kobo, or an editorial team member at Apple Books, or someone from the Nook team comes across your author website or your social media. What do they see?

If every link goes to Amazon, if every call to action asks for Amazon reviews, if your entire online presence screams loyalty to a competitor—how do you think those other platforms are going to feel about promoting you?

And here’s the thing many authors don’t realize: they are paying attention.

The wide retailers, particularly the ones with human merchandising teams, actively look at author behavior. They look at your website. They look at your social media posts. They notice when you’re inclusive and when you’re not. Like Santa Clause they know when you are sleeping on the wide publishing job, and they know when you’re wide awake. (Sorry, I couldn’t resist that play on words)

This doesn’t mean they’ll blacklist you for having Amazon links—they understand the marketplace reality. Amazon is the world’s largest eBook retailer, even if it’s not in as many countries as all of its major competitors.

But if two books of comparable quality land on a merchandiser’s desk, and one author is clearly invested in their platform while the other treats it as an afterthought, which book do you think gets the featured spot?

It’s important for authors to not only understand how the “Wide” platforms actually work, but why that understanding matters.

This is perhaps the single biggest area where wide-but-shallow authors fall short. They’ve invested hours, sometimes years, learning how Amazon operates, but they haven’t spent even fifteen minutes understanding how the other major retailers function.

And the differences are significant.

Amazon operates in a predominantly algorithmic environment. Visibility is largely driven by complex, ever-changing calculations that factor in sales velocity, conversion rates, advertising spend, and a constellation of other data points that Amazon never fully discloses. An entire industry of consultants and software companies exists to help authors decode and game those algorithms—and the tools they sell need constant reinvention because Amazon keeps changing the rules.

I sometimes describe Amazon as a place where the inmates run the asylum, because the system is so algorithm-driven, that it’s often those with the deepest pockets and the ones who are paying for various services that constantly analyze and interpret the shifting sands of the ever-changing algorithms at Amazon who end up “ruling” to the top of the bestseller charts there.

And yes, though the other retailers do rely on algorithms, they also operate differently.

Kobo, Apple Books, and Nook all evolved from, or were modelled after, traditional bookselling environments. They employ human merchandisers—actual people whose job is to curate what readers see when they visit the store. Think of them as the digital equivalent of the buyer at a bookshop chain who decides which books go on the front table, which titles get prime shelf placement, and which new releases get a spotlight in the store window.

At Kobo, for example, the front page and dozens of additional landing pages are managed by a team of merchandisers. Each feature page is a combination of manually placed titles and dynamically generated lists sorted by sales performance within curated categories. These merchandisers plan their promotions weeks and even months in advance, just like their counterparts in physical retail. They have seasonal calendars, themed features, and targeted email campaigns—all decided by real human beings who love books and care about connecting readers with great stories.

Apple’s editorial team operates with similar care, curating feature spots and collections with a deliberate, design-conscious approach that reflects the company’s broader brand values.

Even at platforms where algorithms play a larger role, like Google Play, there are human elements at work alongside the automated systems.

The implication for authors is enormous: you cannot approach these platforms with an algorithm-gaming mindset. The strategies that might move the needle on Amazon—keyword stuffing, rapid-release scheduling designed to exploit the thirty-day cliff, obsessive manipulation of categories—are largely irrelevant when a human being is the one deciding whether your book gets featured.

What matters to a merchandiser is much more fundamental.

So what is it that catches a merchandiser’s eye?

When a merchandiser at Kobo or Apple Books is scanning through thousands of titles to decide which ones deserve a coveted feature spot, they’re making split-second judgments based on a few core elements. And the good news is that if you’ve been around the block for any stretch of time, these are things you likely already know. But it’s worth repeating here.

A professional, genre-appropriate cover. This sounds obvious, but it’s definitely something that bears repeating. Your cover needs to look like it belongs next to the top selling traditionally published and self-published titles in its genre. It needs to work at thumbnail size. And it needs to be appropriate for the specific market—a cover that resonates in the United States might not land the same way in Australia or Germany.

Clean, compelling metadata. Your title, series information, and book description need to be clear, error-free, and targeted to your audience. Merchandisers are looking at this the way a bookstore buyer would flip through a publisher’s catalogue. Typos, vague descriptions, or amateurish sales copy will get you passed over in a heartbeat.

Sensible, optimized pricing. This is one that trips up many authors, especially those coming from the Amazon ecosystem where aggressive discounting has become the default. On platforms like Kobo, for example, readers haven’t been conditioned to only shop the bargain bins. They’re willing to pay fair prices for quality books.

Merchandisers also have revenue targets. When they’re choosing between two comparable books for a single feature spot, simple math comes into play. A book priced at $9.99 that earns the retailer $3.00 per sale is a much more attractive proposition for a revenue-focused merchandiser than a book priced at $0.99 that leaves them with anywhere between $0.54 to $0.70.

And here’s a critical detail many authors overlook: global price optimization matters. If you’re selling on Kobo, Apple Books, Google Play, and you haven’t bothered to set appropriate prices in Australian dollars, Canadian dollars, euros, and British pounds, a merchandiser in those territories is going to pass right over you. They won’t give you a second thought. Why would they feature a book whose pricing signals that the author doesn’t care about their market?

In the interest of providing you with a few concrete tips for going truly wide, because you’ve been publishing wide but shallow, here’s how to start going deeper:

Use universal book links everywhere. Tools like Books2Read (which is free, powered by Draft2Digital), or similar tools from Booklinker and Bookfunnel let you create a single link that routes readers to your book on whichever platform is most appropriate for them, with geo-targeting to send them to the correct regional version of each store. Replace every Amazon-only link on your website, in your email signature, in your social media bios, and in the back matter of your books. This is one of the easiest and most impactful changes you can make.

(BTW, even if you are exclusive to Amazon, a universal book link that has geo-targeting means you don’t have to manage 8 different Amazon links for each of their various stores in different countries)

Audit your entire online presence for inclusivity. Go through your author website, your social media profiles, your newsletter templates, and the back matter of every one of your books. Are you linking only to Amazon? Are you only asking for Amazon reviews? Every time you do that, you’re telling readers on other platforms that they don’t matter—and you’re signaling to those platforms that you’re not invested in them.

Shop the other storefronts yourself. Go to Kobo.com, browse the Apple Books app, visit BN.com. Try to find a book to read. Pay attention to how each store is laid out, how their search works, how books are categorized and featured. You’ll be amazed at how different the experience is from platform to platform, and that understanding will fundamentally change how you think about marketing your own books there.

Optimize your pricing globally. Don’t just set a US dollar price and let the platforms auto-convert. Take the time to manually set prices in the major currencies: AUD, CAD, EUR, GBP, NZD, and USD at minimum. Make sure those prices look right for each market—not some awkward conversion that ends up at $7.43 when $6.99 would look far more intentional. (Handy time-saving tip here: Draft2Digital has built-in currency conversion AND price rounding so that they’ll generate automatically cleaned up global pricing. Starting off with seeing how D2D converts your pricing can allow you to input those same prices at the retailers where you’re publishing direct)

Here’s a screen shot of the eBook pricing page via Draft2Digital, showing the MANGE TERRITORIAL PRICES pop-up. You can manually over-ride any of the auto-converted cleaned/localized prices by checking the boxes. But I’ve checked the boxes to indicate the territories I typically pay the MOST attention to for my English language books.

Embrace pre-orders strategically. On platforms like Kobo, pre-orders carry extra weight that I like to think of as a magic sword in D&D that offers you a 2X bonus on whatever you roll. Kobo applies a bonus multiplier to the ranking boost you get from each pre-order—essentially treating each one as worth double a regular sale. Apple Books does a similar thing. The book gets a ranking boost the day that the order is placed, but also gets a bit of a boost on the release date as well. Pre-orders also signal to merchandisers that readers are already interested in your book, which makes it more likely to catch their attention during the planning stages of upcoming promotions, and there are folks working behind the scenes at Draft2Digital who draw pre-order reports from across all platforms and compile that into insights they share every month with their retail and library partners, helping them spotlight forthcoming titles that are worthy of extra attention.

Submit to retailer-specific promotional opportunities. Kobo Writing Life has a “secret” promotions tab that you have to manually request in order to get it. And they will give it to anyone who asks (so long as you’re not a jerk). And it’s where you can submit your books for consideration for featured placement. Apple has editorial submission opportunities that most authors can get via Draft2Digital or PublishDrive. (When you’re direct with Apple, it’s a case of “don’t call us, we’ll call you.”) Nook’s B&N Press offers a secondary marketing tab that you have to ask for for promotions to authors who publish direct. But they don’t give it out to just anyone, but you still should ask for it. These opportunities exist, but you have to seek them out and use them. Nobody is going to do it for you.

Follow the retailers and their teams on social media. Tag them when you share links to your books. When your book is ranking on their platform, share a screenshot and publicly acknowledge your excitement and gratitude to readers on that platform. If they offer you a promotional opportunity, promote it hard and let them know you’re promoting it. Learn more about them by going to their presentations at various conferences or listening to their podcasts and online interviews. A little bit of acknowledgement and enthusiasm goes a remarkably long way with the people behind these platforms.

Mark with Tara Cremin who heads up the Kobo Writing Life team for Rakuten, Kobo in Toronto, Ontario at TIAC (Toronto Indie Author Conference) April 2025.

Diversify your ad spend beyond Amazon. Facebook ads and BookBub ads can drive traffic to any storefront, not just Amazon. Consider running campaigns that point to your own website, universal book links or directly to specific wide retailers. If you’re spending your entire advertising budget on Amazon Marketing Services, you’re actively choosing to grow only one revenue stream.

Build an ARC team that reviews across platforms. Readers on Kobo, Apple Books, Nook, and Google Play need social proof just as much as Amazon shoppers do. When you recruit ARC readers, ask them to review on at least two platforms—any two they choose. Setting up accounts on non-Amazon storefronts is free, and most don’t have Amazon’s minimum purchase requirement before leaving reviews.

Stop cross-promoting exclusively with KDP Select authors in your newsletters. When you promote an exclusive author’s book to your readers, you’re directing your wide readers to Amazon—essentially telling them, yet again, that their preferred platform doesn’t matter. Be intentional about who you cross-promote with. Seek out other wide authors for newsletter swaps.

The one last bit of advice I want to share here is a critically important one, and something I’ve been passionate about for, well, a long time. And it’s the important of PLAYING THE LONG GAME.

Going truly wide requires patience. Sales on non-Amazon platforms tend to build more slowly, but they also tend to be more stable. You won’t see the dramatic spikes and crashes that characterize the Amazon ecosystem. Instead, you’ll see a slower, steadier accumulation that compounds over time.

And unlike Amazon, where the game changes every time they adjust an algorithm, the fundamentals of success on the wide platforms are remarkably consistent. A great cover, clean metadata, fair pricing, and genuine engagement with each platform’s unique culture have been the keys to wide success for years—and they’ll likely remain so for years to come.

Publishing wide but shallow is like joining a gym, paying for the membership, and never actually showing up to work out. You’ve invested in the potential for better results, but you haven’t done the work to realize them.

The retailers beyond Amazon genuinely want to help authors succeed. They have teams of passionate, book-loving people whose entire job is to connect great books with eager readers. But they can only help the authors who are willing to first help themselves.

So ask yourself: have you actually gone wide? Or have you just made your books available in more places while continuing to behave as if only one platform exists?

Because your goal isn’t just to publish wide.

It’s to sell wide.

And there’s a world of difference between the two.

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Mark Leslie Lefebvre is the author of books like Wide for the Win, Killing It on Kobo, An Author’s Guide to Working with Libraries and Bookstores and several other books for writers. He works part-time as Director of Business Development at Draft2Digital and has spent more than thirty years working in the book industry as a bookseller, bookstore manager, and publishing industry representative. You can find him online at markleslie.ca and via his podcast for writers: Stark Reflections on Writing and Publishing which has been offering weekly insights and reflections since January 2018.