User Guide for Users

Contents
1.0 Introduction .................................................................................................................................................... 3
2.0 Access and Login ............................................................................................................................................. 3
2.1 Getting set up in Kobo InSight .................................................................................................................... 3
2.2 Login Screen ................................................................................................................................................ 4
3.0 Homepage ....................................................................................................................................................... 5
3.1 Account Holder IDs ..................................................................................................................................... 7
3.3 Selecting Time Presets ................................................................................................................................ 7
3.4 Volume of Sales Over Time ......................................................................................................................... 8
3.5 Top Subject Categories ............................................................................................................................... 8
3.5.1 No BISAC Code Error ................................................................................................................................ 9
3.6 Pricing Portal ................................................................................................................................................... 9
3.6.1 How to Set a Promotional Price Using Insight ....................................................................................... 10
3.6.3 Sample Case Study ................................................................................................................................. 12
4.0 Reports .......................................................................................................................................................... 13
4.1 Bestseller Report....................................................................................................................................... 14
4.2 Optional Filters.......................................................................................................................................... 14
4.3 Bestseller Report Results .......................................................................................................................... 15
4.3.1 Exporting Bestseller Results ............................................................................................................... 17
4.3.2 Functional Notes ................................................................................................................................ 17
4.4 Title Detail Report ..................................................................................................................................... 17
4.4.1 Title Detail Report Results Screen...................................................................................................... 18
4.4.2 Exporting the Title Detail Report Results ........................................................................................... 20
5.0 Settings ......................................................................................................................................................... 21
1.0 Introduction

Kobo InSight is a reporting portal designed for Kobo publishers, powered by BookNet Canada’s
SalesData. The SalesData resource is an industry standard, and it tracks point-of-sale data for
print books and—through InSight—ebooks sold by Kobo and our partners.

InSight has three main features:

 VOLUME OF SALES OVER TIME

 TOP CATEGORIES SOLD
 CUSTOM REPORTS: Bestseller & Title Detail

Generating reports based on your sales data is quick and easy. Use them to track trends, sales
gaps, and identify opportunities for your ebooks.

The data is updated daily, but it will always be 24-hours behind, so the most current report will
show all the sales that occurred the day before.

This guide will take you through the following general functions of Kobo InSight:
▪ Access and Login
▪ Homepage
▪ Reports
▪ Account Holder IDs
▪ Settings

2.0 Access and Login

There is no maximum amount of users you can give access to InSight. To request additional
access, contact your Publisher Relations Manager.

2.1 Getting set up in Kobo InSight

Once you have been added as an Insight user by the Publisher Relations Coordinator, you will
receive a welcome e-mail that includes a link to the Password Assistance screen:
Choose your password, confirm and click the “Save” button. Kobo InSight will confirm that your
password has been saved:

Using the provided link, you are able to navigate to Kobo InSight to log in.

2.2 Login Screen

This is the standard InSight login screen. Sign in using your e-mail address and the password you
had created in step 2.1.
KoboInSight.com’s login screen asks for your email address and password. If either of them is
incorrect, you’ll see a small error message under the “forgot your password?” link. If you have
forgotten your password, click the link to bring up the Password Reset popup:

The link in the email will take you to the Password Assistance screen again. Enter and confirm
your new password, and follow the provided link to the login screen.

3.0 Homepage
When you first log in you will see the standard homepage:
The main sections on the homepage are:

 Time Preset Selection

 Volume of Sales Over Time
 Top Categories Sold

The Kobo InSight homepage is accessible to all users. The homepage identifies you in a
welcome message, shows you when data was last updated, and shows two graphical
representations of data.

The charts seen here are generated from data for the Account Holder ID, which is a unique
identifier created by Kobo when you first set up an FTP account with us. If you are a publisher
with multiple account holder IDs, you can choose which account’s data to see on the homepage
by using the Accounts drop down menu in the side header. For more information, see section
3.1 Account Holder ID section.
3.1 Account Holder IDs

An Account Holder ID refers to the unique identifier that is assigned by Kobo to each vendor.
The sales and bibliographic data that flows to InSight is sorted by these IDs.

It is possible for an account to have more than one Account Holder ID assigned to it. If a user’s
account has been assigned multiple account holder IDs, they’ll see an Account Holder ID
selection dropdown in the site header. Changing the selection will change the data pool that
you are currently viewing.

Please note: This dropdown is only visible to users if their

account has access to multiple IDs, and they will only be
able to see the Account Holder IDs they have access to.

If you are an Admin user, you’ll have access to all Account

Holder IDs available for your publisher.

3.3 Selecting Time Presets

The beauty of the homepage is that it’s interactive and dynamic. Using the Time Preset buttons
at the top of the screen, you can customize the time period for the data displayed in the charts
on the home page.
By changing the date of sale range using the presets, you will be able to identify trends over
time. The end date for each preset is the date of the last data update, which is seen below the
welcome message. The data is updated daily for the day before.

3.4 Volume of Sales Over Time

The Volume of Sales chart is also interactive. When viewing either 7 days or 4 months, each day
is visible with a small circular marker. When you click on that marker, you’re taken to the
Bestseller Report for that day.

▪ This chart shows the number of units sold over a period of time (4 months in this case).
▪ The 4 month, 12 month, and year-to-date charts also have clickable markers for each
day, but they are not visible until you mouse over the graph line.
▪ Clicking a marker, whether visible or hidden, will result in a sales report being run for
the date clicked. You will be sent to the Bestseller Report Results screen. 


3.5 Top Subject Categories

This chart shows the top ten BISAC categories based on unit sales over the period of time
chosen from the presets at the top of the screen. (The default setting is 7 days.)
3.5.1 No BISAC Code Error
If BISAC codes are not being received for an ISBN then that ISBN is marked as having “No BISAC
Code Specified.”

IMPORTANT:
You may see a disproportionate number of “No BISAC Code Specified” titles. This may be caused by one of
a few issues:
▪ The publisher is not supplying Kobo with any category codes in their eBooks’ metadata files.

▪ The publisher is supplying Kobo with category codes in their eBooks’ metadata files, but in a
format Kobo cannot read (CLIL data, etc.)

▪ The publisher is supplying Kobo with BISAC or BIC category codes, but in a format our system has
trouble mapping (2012 BISAC, for example. Kobo still uses 2008 BISAC coding, and the translation
is not perfect)

The solution for publishers is simple: please ensure that you provide Kobo with BISAC or BIC codes in your
eBooks’ metadata files.

If you already are and are still seeing a large number of “No BISAC Code Specified” titles, please know that
we are continually working to improve our code mapping capabilities.

3.6 Pricing Portal

The pricing portal is a tool that allows publishers to set short-term promotional prices for
books. This enables publishers to override book prices for a set period of time without waiting
for a metadata change to be processed through the FTP. The tool is ideal for discounting or
changing the prices of books quickly and can be accessed at any time by the publisher.
 NOTE:
Metadata updates DO NOT override any prices entered in this tool. InSight-set promotional
pricing is now prioritized.

The tool’s functionality allows the publisher to alter the following variables for a promotion:
 Territory
 List Price
 Start/End Date
 Start/End Time
 Time Zone

3.6.1 How to Set a Promotional Price Using Insight

1. To get to the pricing portal, click “Tools” on the toolbar located in the top section of the
homepage and then select “Promo Price Management” from the dropdown menu.

2. When in the pricing portal, publishers search for your ebook by inputting the ISBN:


Once the ISBN has been entered into the search field the report will pull the most current data for the
book including the current list price.

*Note that the tool will not display complete pricing data as seen in the metadata, but rather provide
the publisher with an easy-to-use interface for creating promotions quickly.
3. To set a new price, select “add new price.”

4. Fill in the territory in which the promotional price will appear.

 “Worldwide” is not an option in the Territory column. If you wish to create

a promo price for several territories, you must create an individual territory
for each country.

5. Fill in the list price, start and end dates, start and end times.

 The maximum length of the promotional price is six months from the
specified start date. The “End Date” field cannot be left open.

6. Set your time zone as required.

 NOTE:
Kobo uses the UTC Coordinated Universal Time as a default in our systems. When setting a
promotional price, please make sure to choose your appropriate time zone! Do not leave it
set to UTC. Once you click “save changes” Insight will automatically convert your time to the
UTC Coordinated Universal Time.

 North American publishers should always set their time zone to Eastern
Time. To make sure the deal remains active for the entire day on the west
coast set the end time to 3:00 AM EST and the end time to the day after the
start day.

7. Click “submit changes” to confirm your promotion. To check your new promotion, search
the book via ISBN in the search bar.

8. To remove a promotion, click “delete” in the last column and then click “submit
changes.”


When completing a price change, please note:
▪ InSight does not facilitate promotional pricing on pre-orders. In order to create a
promotion for a pre-order book contact our Publisher Operations team or your territory
merchandiser. Alternatively, you can update the price via metadata feed.
▪ The small red triangle in the top left corner of a text box field, indicates that a change
has been made, but still needs to be submitted.

3.6.3 Sample Case Study

A 24-hour promotion for Book X for December 25.
STEP ONE - A

OR

STEP ONE - B

Both of the above examples are correct. The first one is slightly easier to setting from midnight to midnight
saves you three clicks.

Then you hit “submit changes,” and the correct InSight page should look like:

STEP TWO – A

OR

STEP TWO - B

And that title will be $3.99 in CA only for the entirety of December 25 only!

4.0 Reports
Kobo InSight has a flexible and adaptable sales report drop-down menu. It has several criteria
you can choose from and define to give you exactly the information you’re looking for. All of
your sales report information is right at your fingertips.
4.1 Bestseller Report
The Bestseller Report generates a list of specified titles ranked by Units Sold. To run the report,
select “Bestseller” from the drop-down menu in the site header. The following view will appear:

For a basic report of all the titles under your chosen Account Holder ID, select the relevant
dates under the “mandatory criteria” section and click “generate”.
 Sales Date Range – start and end dates are set to last date of data load by default. Results will
be limited to sales seen in between (and including) the dates set here.

 Row Limit – refers to the number of rows that the results should be limited to. Set to 100 by
default but you can choose from 100, 250, 500, 1000, 2000, 5000, 10000.

4.2 Optional Filters

Additionally, specific reports can be generated by using the “optional criteria” section. If you
need clarification on any of the available fields, click the “?” icon next to a criterion to bring up
the helpful popup.
The report can be customized using the following options:
 ISBN – you can limit your search by one or multiple ISBNs. The character limit is for this field is
15,000, which is up to 1000 13- digit ISBNs separated by a space.

 Title – search by the partial or full ebook title. Note that this field does not support searching
multiple titles at once.

 Author / Contributor – search for titles by a single author or contributor by entering their full or
partial name. For names with initials, use only the last name for best results.

 Publisher / Imprint – enter the full or partial name to generate a report for imprint-specific
titles.

 Publication Date Range – search for titles published between certain dates. There is no default
date range set. “Publication Date” here refers to the Publication Date set in the eBooks’
metadata.

 Billing Country – search for titles by the country in which the sale occurred.

4.3 Bestseller Report Results

Once you have filled out the relevant criteria fields and clicked “generate,” the report results
will appear in the following format:
By default, the report is organized in ranked order from the most Units Sold to the least.
However, you can sort the list by clicking on any column headers you wish. The table is created
with the following columns:
 Rank – a numerical expression of the title’s performance based on units sold.

 Title – the full title of the ebook. You have the option to sort by alphabetical or reverse-
alphabetical order.

 Contributors – all contributors and authors for the title are listed here.

 ISBN – the title’s ISBN will appear here. Note that this is a hyperlink and by clicking it you can
generate the Title Detail Report for that ISBN.

 Units Sold – the total number of units sold for the date range specified in the criteria filter. The
report is automatically sorted in descending order of units sold.

 Units Sold Previous – the total number of units sold in the date range prior to the currently
selected date range. Preorders do not appear count towards sales totals until they have been
converted to actual sales upon publication.

 Units Sold Month-to-Date – the total number of units in the current month, up to the last data
load.

 Units Sold Year-to-Date -- the total number of units in the current year, up to the last data load.

 Units Sold Lifetime – the total number of units sold measured from the first sale, or from February
9, 2009 (Kobo Inc.’s first sale), to the last data load.

 The table also contains columns that indicate the Publisher, Imprint, and the Pub Date associated
with the ebook. Along with the title, authors, and ISBN these fields are derived from the metadata
provided by the publisher.
4.3.1 Exporting Bestseller Results

The results screen has two export options: Excel and CSV. Clicking either will export the results
to the selected format. An Excel export will show the criteria used to generate the report in the
header; a CSV export will not.

4.3.2 Functional Notes

 The Bestseller report has a help tooltip that explains what data is seen in each column. Just
mouse over the column headers.

 Each column can be sorted in ascending order by clicking on the column heading. Click again to
sort in descending order.

 By default, the results screen shows 50 rows and paginates the remaining rows. There is a page
and row selection feature at the bottom of the results screen that you can use to move through
pages or change the number of rows seen on each page.

 To revise criteria, click “modify” in the report criteria box at the top of the page.

4.4 Title Detail Report

There are two ways to access this report. First, you can choose it from the Reports drop-down
menu in the navigation panel at the top of the page:
As a second option, you can click on any ISBN in the Bestseller Report to pull up the Title Detail
Report for that specific ebook:

When choosing the report from the drop-down menu at the top of the screen brings you to the
Title Detail report criteria screen:

The only mandatory criteria are the ISBN of the book you’d like to investigate and the Start and
End dates of the report. You can also set the Billing Country, List Price Currency, and Sale Price
Currency.
Please Note: the default end date is yesterday’s date; the default start date is a month
before the default end date.

Once you have completed your desired filters, click the “Generate” button.

4.4.1 Title Detail Report Results Screen

When generated, the report results screen will look like this:
The first section contains all the bibliographic information for the book as indicated in the
metadata, including Title, ISBN, Publication Date, Language, Contributors, Publisher, Imprint,
and Formats.

The section to the right of the bibliographic data provides a Sales Summary for the book
including total sales month to date, year to date, lifetime, and the date of the first sale.

The report contains the same customization fields as you saw in the Criteria window when you
generated the report from the drop-down menu. These allow you to easily modify your report.

The simple view of the report shows the total daily Units Sold and % Change (from the previous
day) in the date range selected. To show more detail, click “expand all” at the top of the table:
In the expanded view you will see the Billing Country, List Price, Sale Price, Value Sold (List
Price), and Value Sold (Sale Price) columns populated. Sales and units will be broken down by
Billing Country and all pricing columns will indicate the currency:

 Billing Country means the country in which the transaction occurred.

 List Price refers to the original price provided by the publisher.
 Sale Price refers to the price at which the book was actually purchased. If a publisher took part
in a promotion, the List Price and Sale Price will be different.
 Value Sold means the List and Sale Price, respectively, multiplied by the units sold.

4.4.2 Exporting the Title Detail Report Results

Just like the Bestseller report, the Title Detail report can be exported to an Excel or CSV file with
the associated buttons:

The exported document will automatically contain the expanded view and will feature a
“subtotal” section with totals for each territory in which the ebook had a sale.
5.0 Settings

The Settings page is accessible by all users. You can use it to edit the following for yourself:

1) Name – this will change the name displayed in the welcome text on the main page, in
the e-mails sent to you, and on the site’s homepage.
2) Password – you must enter your current password to change it to a new password.
3) Account Holder ID Default – you can change your default ID selection by selecting a
different ID. You’ll see the data for the new ID first by default when you log in next.

If you have any further questions, click the “help” button in the header or contact your
Publisher Relations Manager.