I’m excited to announce that Kobo Plus has just expanded to the United States and the United Kingdom (meaning it now covers all five English language Kobo territories). All my books are available through this service, but read on for more details.
The basics
Kobo Plus is a subscription service where for one monthly fee, you can get access to all the books available through Kobo Plus for no additional cost. For Kobo Plus, you can subscribe to get ebooks, audio books, or both for a monthly fee.
Read Kobo’s announcement with all the details and pricing. Here’s more help information about Kobo Plus. (If you’re coming from outside the US and that link doesn’t work for you, check the “Help” section. Look under “My eBooks and Audiobooks” or something similar to that.)
In most places (including the US and UK), you can try the service for a month for free. See under “Good to know” below for a little note about this if there are authors you want to particularly support.
You can read on the web, in a Kobo ereader, or using apps on your mobile devices. Whichever way suits you at the moment!
As of April 5, 2023, Kobo Plus is available in all five major English language territories (the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand) as well as Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Portugal.
My books
All my published books are available via Kobo Plus. I’m excited for a new way for readers to find my books and to help out readers who may be on a tight budget. And I’m always a fan of readers having lots of choices in where and how they can get my books. My books have been available via Kobo Plus in other territories since I started writing, so I’m delighted to add the US and the UK.
You can read other books via Kobo Plus if you see “Free on Kobo Plus” on the description.
Note: There’s one ghost edition of Eclipse that shows up in my searches right now that doesn’t have Kobo Plus on it. I’m not sure where that’s coming from right now and I’m trying to figure out how it got there. There is an edition that’s available via Kobo Plus if you keep scrolling or search for the title + author specifically.
Also good to know: Kobo Plus has different requirements and policies than Kindle Unlimited. Check out the “Good to know” section below for a bit more about that.
Other authors
Access to Kobo Plus in the US and UK is brand new, so while a number of authors (including me) have been in it in other locations, authors are making a variety of choices right now. Some are putting some of their books in (like first in series, or particular series). Some are putting none of their books in. Some are putting all of their books in.
I expect to see authors making a range of choices over the coming months. People will get a sense for how this new service is working and how it fits into their publishing plans. I know some authors want to wait and get a sense of how it works after a wave of new trial subscriptions. Authors also have all sorts of different priorities or things they can handle at the moment.
Good to know
There are a few other details readers might want to know.
Kobo Plus is different than Kindle Unlimited in one big way: exclusivity
Kindle Unlimited requires authors to be exclusive to Kindle with their ebooks if the book is in Kindle Unlimited. (At least indie authors like me – big publishers get different rules here.)
In other words, if your book is in Kindle Unlimited, that (or buying it on Kindle) are the only way readers can get it. It’s not available from other ebook stores (Apple Books, B&N Nook, Google Play, Kobo, Smashwords, etc.). And it’s also not available to libraries through the library ebook sources.
Kobo Plus doesn’t have that rule. eBooks in Kobo Plus can be everywhere else the author wants – other ebook stores, libraries, etc. That’s why I’m delighted for Kobo Plus and why I’m not in Kindle Unlimited. Again, I want you, my readers, to make your choices about where you get your books that work for you.
The free trial is just that – free for you! It does mean authors will not get paid for books read during that trial (only once you start paying for your subscription). If you’d like to particularly support an author, you might want to wait until you’re on a paid subscription to read their books.
Me, I’m running on the theory that people who like my books will stick around.
Authors get paid by reading time rather than page count, using a calculation Kobo’s been making in other territories. (This is a sort of complex calculation, but it’s meant to help deter scammers.) Again, I’m personally pretty confident this will be fine for me and my books and my readers.
Got more questions? I don’t have unique info here – just what I’ve picked up talking to other authors and reading the information from Kobo. Their help info is quite complete, so check there if you need more help getting started. Do let me know if there’s some problem with one of my books in particular, and I’ll see if I can sort things out for you.
