Kobo Launches eBook Subscription Service Kobo Plus
I have little solid information yet but I have just heard that Kobo is going to launch an ebook subscription service at midnight EST (about 30 minutes from now).
Edit: Kobo hasn’t launched Kobo Plus yet, but the service is very real (I have the T&C).
There’s a blank info page for Kobo Plus on the Kobo Writing Life blog, and a similarly blank page on the (US) Kobo website. The meta description for that page says:
Kobo Plus eBook subscription gives you unlimited access to titles from every genre that can be read on any device. Start a 30-day free trial today.
Further digging has revealed that the Dutch-language page (German?) for Kobo Plus is already live. Bol.com is going to be a partner, and the service will cost 10 euros per month with a 30-day trial.
The matching catalog is also live, and I can see that 37,127 titles are listed.
It’s not clear how Kobo Plus compares to Kindle Unlimited, the subscription service Amazon launched in July 2014, but it is clearly a competing service.
According to my source, Kobo Plus is "better in terms of royalties and there’s no exclusivity involved. And it also benefits readers, as well."
KU paid out $16.8 million in royalties last month, and close to $200 million in 2016 alone. I can’t wait to see how Kobo tops that.
I guess we will have to wait for the official announcement to find out.
Edit: Authors are reporting that there is a new "Kobo Plus" section of their dashboard. The one screenshot I saw on Facebook mentions that this service is live in Belgium and the Netherlands.
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