Kobo last made headlines in November 2011,
when it was sold to Japanese e-commerce giant
Rakuten Inc. In its first major venture under new ownership, the Toronto-based eReader company is set to launch a self-publishing platform at the end of this month.
The venture, called
Kobo Writing Life, aims to help writers manage their own publications more effectively, as well as retain a greater percentage of royalties than with competitors currently in the market. Writing Life will provide authors with real-time analytics and data to help them fine-tune their offerings, via a metrics dashboard; users will then be able to tweak specific elements, like cover art or price in individual markets, on the fly. Writers will receive 70 per cent of the royalties from any publications priced between $1.99 and $12.99, and 45 per cent from books priced outside of that range.
Mark Lefebvre, Kobo's director of publisher and author relations, told us that Writing Life began when Kobo asked writers "What can we do to make it easier, not only to get into the catalogue but to become more successful?" One key reply, he says, was provide more information: writers want to know how their publications are doing in as much detail as possible.
Lefebvre sees three kinds of writers especially benefiting from the new platform: what he calls "the
Terry Fallises," who have fully developed works but can't get an agent or publisher; writers who have traditional publishers but have some pieces (say shorts stories or novellas) that don't fall into their usual type of writing; and writers who are already self-published in Canada and want to explore foreign markets.
Kobo began the project with just a "bare bones" staff, Lefebvre says. It's tripled over the past three months, with about 30 people in total working on Writing Life. The company is aggressively hiring staff to work both on Writing Life and other products; about 35 positions are currently open at the company.
Writer: Hamutal Dotan
Source: Mark Lefebvre, Director of Publisher and Author Relations, Kobo