Any book on any device

Last week little-known Shortcovers of Canada made an announcement that will without doubt make a major impact in the world of e-books.  Over the past year, Shortcovers has been quietly drawing together an array of backers world-wide [including Borders in the US] and piling up a huge war-chest for its entry as a big-time world-wide player in e-books.  It announced its ambitious plans on 15 December and unveiled its new brand name:  Kobo.

To understand the significance of this announcement, just take a look at the principal backers.  Indigo Books and Music is the largest book retailer in Canada, with bricks-and-mortar bookstores and a major online presence.  Think of a combination of Barnes and Noble and Amazon, and you’ll understand the dimensions of this company.  Wikipedia gives a good overview of Indigo Books.

US retailer Borders has signed on as a backer as well.  Borders released its own press release about this venture, which provides additional information about the scope of the deal.  For its distribution of ebooks, Kobo has adopted the open ePub format, which can be read on many different e-book readers, including the Sony Reader.  That’s the same e-reader device that Borders has adopted.  Kobo also broadly hints that it has its own branded e-reader device up its sleeve.  Kobo obviously ups the ante in the e-reader wars, giving Borders a strong competitor to go up against Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes and Noble’s Nook.  Borders will also soon launch its own dedicated e-book store, offering over two million books, which will be powered by technology from Indigo.

Kobo instantly flexes its international muscle through its backer REDgroup Retail of Australia, New Zealand and Singapore.  Pacific Equity Partners, a REDgroup investor, provides an informative profile of this major bookseller.

Broadening its reach even further, Kobo announced backing from Instant Fame, a subsidiary of Hong Kong’s Cheung Kong Holdings, a global investment conglomerate with interests in retail and telecommunications.

Writers should be very excited about Kobo.  It appears to me to be, at the moment at least, the most far-reaching distribution channel for any writer considering an e-book release.  The expanse of Kobo’s vision is spelled out on its blog.  It aims to make any book available on any reading device, including dedicated e-book readers, desktop computers, smartphones such a iPhone, Android, PalmPre, and whatever else comes along in the future.  In fact, a number of reading applications are already available for download right on Kobo’s website, with more to come.

Kobo recognizes aspiring writers as a vital source of new material.  A search of its website will uncover its guidelines for submissions by writers and publishers.

Kobo has tied up with Smashwords t0 facilitate preparation of manuscripts and for marketing.  As readers of this blog will know, I’ve already identified Smashwords as the model for a self-publishing platform.  E-Books can be offered for free, in their entirety or perhaps only a few chapters on a try-before-you-buy model.  Authors collect fifty percent of the sales price.

ANOTHER MOSTLY INVISIBLE DEVELOPMENT: The self-publishing and digital e-book revolution is spawning a new breed of publisher.  These are small, often niche-oriented.  They open up new opportunities for writers.  And Kobo opens up new opportunities for distribution of books by even the smallest of publishers.  Take Atomic Fez, for example, currently a new publisher with four titles to promote.  Here’s what publisher Ian Alexander Martin has to say about Kobo:

The customers for books are actively seeking out different books recommended by friends, co-workers, and through social networking sites whether they’re book-related or not. People are relying less-and-less on large advertising campaigns. Kobo making a larger variety of what was once thought to be ‘niche’ or ‘cult’ content is something that readers, writers, and publishers such as myself can only support as a ‘very good thing’ every time something like this moves us forward. This will make some fiction available to areas of the world that may never have been exposed to it otherwise; whether they want it or not!”

Similar small publishers are popping up everywhere.  Amelia Saltsman, the winner of the 2009 Writer’s Digest Self-Published Book Award, set up, along with her husband, their own publishing company for the purpose of publishing her own book.  This is a strategy followed by many self-published authors, once they learn that distribution is often easier done by a “publisher”than by an “author.”  Some of these new publishers go on to publish other books within their genre.  Amelia Saltsman, for example,  intimated in her WD interview that once she won the award, she officially left her publishing company, but her husband continues to maintain it for other future projects.

Another route to a new publishing venture is the collective.  Diiarts is such a group, important enough to attract the attention of the Harper Collins Authonomy Blog, which recently published an interesting interview with the Diiarts founder.

For another prespective on Kobo’s announcement, check out Quill and Quire’s blog, which  has an informative post about the significance of this announcement.

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• Indigo sees 10% shift to e-books as downloads near 1M (financialpost.com)
• Sony plots death of Amazon Kindle (theregister.co.uk)
• Smashwords and Shortcovers Sign Ebook Distribution Agreement (smashwords.com)
• Kobo e-reader to heat up Kindle competition (financialpost.com)
• Canadian Ebook Store Offers ‘Free’ Public Domain Ebooks — Claims Copyright Says You Can Only Make 1 Copy (techdirt.com)
• Sony heating up e-reader wars (robbiz1978.blogspot.com)
• Sony embraces small publishers and unknown authors on Sony Reader eBook store (digital.venturebeat.com)
• e-Book Echo: Sony Goes Indie; Foxit Goes ePUB; Nook Gets Sued (jkontherun.com)

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