Owners of a Kobo may find it easier to find something to read, as Rakuten’s Kobo joins up with Booktopia for a book buffet with a feast for your eyes.
The all-you-can-read eBook service on Kindle isn’t alone in Australia as a Netflix style offering for books this week, as Kindle’s biggest eReader competitor gets its own eBook buffet service just like it, except made for the Kobo, not the Kindle.
Called Kobo Plus, it’s essentially a buffet of books on offer for Australians with a Kobo, offering hundreds of thousands of titles across several categories for a monthly fee.
Priced at $13.99 per month, it will essentially provide access to over 580,000 eBook titles, running across categories including fiction, literature, mystery, biography, science fiction, business, comics and graphic novels, as well as covering some of the genres for younger readers such as kids and young adult.
In Australia, Booktopia is the book provider working with Kobo to make this happen, connecting locals with a service that makes it possible to subscribe to a large amount of books at once, able to check them out without having to pay for them individually. It joins the availability of eBooks at local libraries, which allows you to borrow books without having to pay for them at all, one of the other options available to Australians with an eBook reader not made by Amazon, which tends to be locked into its own system.
“Digital reading is only increasing in popularity. It’s why we are so excited to introduce Kobo Plus, the next evolution in digital reading that enables our Australian customers to read more and discover new, exciting books that seamlessly integrate with their Kobo eReaders and apps, all for a low monthly price,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO of Rakuten Kobo.
“Our mission is straightforward: make a reader’s life better,” he said. “By working with an incredible partner like Booktopia, we can reach more Australian readers than ever before.”
As is the case with Kindle’s version of the same, however, not every title is available as part of Kobo Plus, with more being added over time, but not everything available as part of the service. While Kobo told Pickr that over 580,000 titles are available at launch with more being added regularly, it didn’t have a complete list. Rather, to find out whether a title is available, essentially you’ll just search for one on either your Kobo or the Kobo app and check whether it’s free with Kobo Plus.
However, there is a 30 day trial to see whether Kobo Plus is right for a user, with the $13.99 price a monthly one after that, affording Kobo owners the chance to see whether Kobo’s buffet of books is just right before they pay for it on the regular, and launching this week, at that.
