ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
It’s been a busy time for Kobo Plus expansion. In recent weeks they have expanded their Kobo Plus offering to a number of new markets. First came Hong Kong and Taiwan. South Africa and Ireland followed shortly afterwards. They note that accompanying the former of these two rollouts is the offering of an author portal in both Simplified and Traditional Chinese.
Kobo Plus is a subscription service that gives readers access to an unlimited number of ebooks as well as a monthly audiobook credit. For your books to be eligible, you do not, unlike the Kindle Unlimited programme, need to give Kobo exclusivity. It’s clear that Kobo believes this kind of subscription model is still the general direction that creative media is heading. And, looking at their marketing material to authors around the changes, it’s clear they believe that offering subscription services enables platforms like theirs to reach new customers, used to accessing the creations they love in this way.
If you are interested in asking questions about Kobo Plus, then you can take part in an AMA (“ask me anything”) on March 28th. The session is hosted by senior members of the Kobo Writing Life team, and will be addressing questions, in their words, on “how to opt in to Kobo Plus (including bulk opt in options), how Kobo Plus can increase your revenue, how to market your Kobo Plus titles, what promos are available for Kobo Plus books, what Kobo is doing to advertise this service, how it all works, and much more.”
In the meanwhile, for those authors based in Kobo’s home country of Canada, the company has launched its 10th annual Emerging Writer Prize. The prize is open to new writers. Entries are for five categories of books: literary fiction; non-fiction; and the genres of speculative fiction, mystery, and romance.
ALLi Members can download “A Guide to Expanded Distribution With Kobo Writing Life” to learn more about Kobo Plus and how to opt your books into the program. Just login and navigate to “APPROVED PARTNERS” –> “KEY PARTNER GUIDES”
