In Canada, Kobo is expanding their Kobo Plus subscription ereading service to include an option for unlimited use of over 100,000 audiobooks. A single format — reading only, or listening only — costs $9.99 a month, and the combined reading and listening subscription is $12.99 a month. In a separate report on ebook reading and sales in 2022, Kobo says reading time on their platform in Canada declined “a slight seven per cent” compared to last year, “understandable given relative freedom from lockdowns and an easing of pandemic restrictions.”
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Bertelsmann’s RTL Will Launch Multimedia Streaming Service that Includes Audiobooks
Last month, Bertelsmann unveiled the first part of an ambitious digital multi-media subscription service in Germany from their giant broadcasting subsidiary, called RTL+. Starting with a rebranded version of their previous service streaming service, by the second quarter of next year the new multi-media subscription will combine “video, audio, magazine, and book publishing assets” from across Bertelsmann divisions. Bertelsmann ceo Thomas Rabe told FAZ, “Our idea is: one app, all media,” adding that, “There is no other offer like this in the world.” Their goal is 10 million subscriptions by 2026 in Germany and the Netherlands. RTL’s existing video streaming […]
Kobo Brings Subscriptions to Canada, Launches New Device
Kobo has launched their subscription reading service Kobo Plus in Canada, three and a half years after starting with subscriptions in Holland and Belgium. The company notes, “Rakuten Kobo recognizes books as the next frontier for subscriptions in Canada. Further, Kobo has seen demand for this service in global markets.” It is priced at $9.99 a month (CA). They say that in Holland, the program brought new readers and customers to digital (or at least to their service): “60 per cent of the country’s Kobo Plus subscribers had never before purchased an a-la-carte eBook from Kobo.” They say it has […]
Penguin Random House Pulls Titles from Unlimited Subscription Services Around the World
Earlier this month, as of January 15 by most indications, Penguin Random House removed its audiobook titles from a variety of “unlimited” listening subscription platforms around the world. The news was first reported out of Scandinavia, where the disappearance was notable on leading platform Storytel and its acquired subsidiaries (like Mofibo in Denmark), as well as on their leading competitors such as Bonnier’s Bookbeat and Russia’s Nextory. Missed in that reporting is that PRH’s titles have also been removed from Scribd, where their audiobooks were also a notable part of the offering. (When PRH audio first participated with Scribd in […]
Briefs: Germany’s KNV Sold, Scribd Minis, Rebel Girls Imprint, PRH UK Pulls Book
Bankrupt German book wholesaler KNV (Koch, Neff and Volckmar) was auctioned by the trustee to Berlin-based privately owned logistics company Zeitfracht. The sale price was not disclosed, but the creditors’ committees have approved the purchase agreement. Zeitfracht says it will retain all employees — approximately 1,600 jobs — and continue to operate KNV’s three locations. Press release Subscription service Scribd is formally rolling out Snapshots (which launched in beta in February), “designed to offer key insights of a book in about 15 minutes to spark subscribers’ interest in reading the book in its entirety.” It’s “the literary equivalent of a […]
Kobo CEO Tamblyn’s Tips for Raising eBook Revenues
It’s only appropriate that a Book Industry Study Group (BISG) annual meeting Friday that opened with predictions of continuing tight markets for book paper and manufacturing concluded with Kobo (“often thought of as ‘Kobo-Who-We-Wish-Were-Bigger-In-the-US'”) ceo Michael Tamblyn running down six ways to sell more digital product — and retain readers’ attention — with better metadata. His biggest and most important suggestion/ask — which has been a staple of some of my own speeches for years — was, “Add series data. Every damn time.” As Tamblyn noted, series represent a whopping 52 percent of their ebook sales. Yet it is “one […]