Kobo has, in the past few years, drawn some attention to itself. It’s sniped an Amazon executive, reported an elevenfold multiplication of their revenue between 2011 and 2015, and controls approximately 20% of the global e-reading marketshare. For a company founded in 2009 (with, granted, the resources of a retail chain behind it), it’s not a bad rap sheet. What’s more, this rapid growth and accumulation of publishing prowess seems to feeding a company that seems almost suspiciously conscientious. Across the board, Kobo maintains fairer royalty rates and distributor relationships than its next natural competitor, Amazon.
This probably has to do with the fact that Kobo, unlike Amazon, is completely and unwaveringly invested in its digital, e-book distribution platform. Todd Humphrey, EVP of Business Development, says that Kobo is the only company that is 100% committed to its books and its e-readers, all the time. Unlike B&N, Amazon, and others, they have no conflicting interests and nothing else to worry about. This sort of focus on reading, and improving the reading experience, also leads to a seemingly much more ethical corporation as a whole.
When I speak of being “ethical,” I mean that Kobo seems to treat its neighbors in the publishing industry quite well. While Amazon will deeply discount books and negotiate aggressively about prices and JIT delivery, Kobo allows authors and publishers more control over the price and presentation of their book. Additionally, it partners with local distributors and retailers worldwide instead of attempting to push them aside. Incidentally, this has allowed for Kobo’s rapid globalization and expansion. “From day 1,” says Todd Humphrey. “We made it our goal and a priority to be international. If we weren’t international, we were not going to get the scale. We were not going to be able to get the pricing that some of our competitors would get to.”
Even Kobo’s self-publishing model seems downright generous compared to that of Amazon. It has a higher dollar bracket in which authors can be authored %70 royalties ($5.00), and generally pays more for titles on the whole. It will also accept and distribute books in a variety of formats instead of insisting on .MOBI, and rather surprisingly, authors can reconfigure or cancel their agreements with Kobo whenever they like, with no questions asked.
With a sound business model, a dedication to reading, and good support and distribution of its hardware e-readers, it’s hard to find anything not to like about Kobo. The closest the company has come to a scandal was back in 2013, when abuse-centric pornographic titles were appearing in the self-published list. Kobo shut down the sale of all self-published titles for a while after that and implemented a reviewing process. Even today, self-publishers have to follow a content agreement that excludes obscene, offensive, and pornographic content. There’s some quiet grumbling about how that might be an inhibition on freedom of speech, but I’m not convinced that it’s barred any great works of art yet.