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Kobo Plans to Add POD Services to Their Publishing Portal

4968513144_01d2f73778_oKobo sent out an email today to KWL users, inviting them to fill out a survey and explain what features they want:

Hi,

You indicated interest in our Print-on-Demand service. We’re still in development, but we’d like to know what you want to see in a POD platform.

Please take a moment to answer this short survey. Your feedback will help us shape this service to your needs. You will also have the option to opt into our beta test to try out this new service before launch.

Click here to take the survey.

The survey asks about optional layout, design, and distribution services, and format (paperback vs hardback), before going into the nitty-gritty details about an author’s book.

This is far more than simply a query about whether authors want this service; Kobo wants to know specific technical details about the books an author is distributing via POD. Some of the options for describing your PDF file are so arcane that you’d have to be an Adobe Acrobat expert to know what they mean.

If you have any POD books, you should fill out this survey. It will give Kobo a better understanding if the market, and that should help other authors.

O O O

Today’s survey is the latest stage in Kobo’s long-running plans to expand beyond ebook retail. Around six months ago Kobo announced plans to add new services to its Kobo Writing Life publishing portal. So far they’ve added a discount on audiobook production and a (worthless) discount on ISBN purchases, and soon they could expand into POD services.

Kobo wants to turn KWL into a comprehensive services platform like eBookBaby, Fastpencil (which just launched a Fastpencil for Libraries service), BlblioCrunch, etc, but given how quiet that part of the publishing industry has been of late I am not sure there’s demand for a new competitor.

Do you think there is room, much less a need for another comprehensive portal in the ebook market?

image by welcometoalville

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