It amazes me how often news items come in pairs. And this week sees one of those prima facie unlikely pairs, either of which would be interesting and unusual. The theme? E-book platforms announcing partnerships with social reading apps.
ALLi News Editor Dan Holloway
Kobo and Storygraph Sync Up
First up is Kobo (this is actually a week or so old, but huge thanks to Nate Hoffelder for bringing it to my attention in his Monday Morning Coffee). They have announced a partnership with Storygraph. Storygraph is not so much a forum in the Goodreads mold as a tracker where you keep a record of how far you've got in a book, what you've read, what your friends are reading, and what might be your next read. For the runners among you, it's kind of like Strava for reading. What this means is that your Kobo and your Storygraph accounts will automatically sync, making tracking a lot lower friction.
Everand and Fable Merge Subscriptions
Everand have also announced a synchronization. This is with Fable, which was bought by Everand's parent, Scribd, last year. Fable is also a social reading app and tracker. More than just a partnership that allows syncing, this will involve a single subscription that gives readers both functions, automatically updating their Fable account as they read in Everand. The single subscription bundle, at $11.99, gives access to Fable Plus and Everand.
The ‘Under One Roof' Trend
The moves make sense in the current environment. We are increasingly seeing “under one roof” moves, whether it's TikTok Shop, Spotify expanding its “for authors” side on the one hand with the ElevenLabs partnership and its listener offering on the other with Page Match, or the likes of Wattpad offering “idea to studio” pipelines.
This is in that same vein, making it easier for readers to do everything they might want to do with a book in a single place. It is also a further indication that reading continues to be something people want to do in company, whether that's in book clubs (Fable includes several book club features) or sharing thoughts on social media.
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