Kobo Plus Expands Operations to Canada

By Modupe Gbadeyanka

Publishers of books living in Canada, who have waited for the birth of a revenue-sharing platform, Kobo Plus, in the North American nation, now have something to cheer about.

The founder of the company, Rakuten Kobo, has decided to expand to the country with the launch of Kobo Canada.

Canada is Kobo’s strongest performing territory, where it has the most reach. So, opening up Kobo Plus Canada provides a huge opportunity for authors.

Recall that in 2017, Rakuten Kobo rolled out Kobo Plus, a revenue-sharing model for authors distributing ebooks, to the Netherlands and Belgium.

Kobo Plus is Kobo’s subscription service that allows subscribers have access to books on an all-you-can-read basis.

It’s currently available in strategic territories in Europe and North America: Belgium, the Netherlands, and Canada.

Kobo Writing Life authors can opt into Kobo Plus via the Rights and Distribution tab in their KWL Dashboard. The option is available to choose all territories or specific countries.

It was gathered that this new move to launch Kobo Plus Canada will also favour a Nigerian firm, Publiseer, which already distributes to Kobo Plus, allowing its catalogue to automatically be included in the new territory.

Publiseer is a digital platform that lets independent African writers fine-tune, distribute, protect, promote and monetize their ebooks and audiobooks across hundreds of partner stores worldwide, at no charge to the authors, but for a share in the revenue; Publiseer generates for such author.

The firm was recently awarded the Migration Entrepreneurship Prize by the Swiss Government for the opportunity it offers to underserved African creatives.