Booktopia partners with Kobo for ebook, audiobook sales

Booktopia has changed its ebook offering following a deal with Rakuten Kobo to exclusively offer Kobo ebooks.

Through the Booktopia by Rakuten Kobo app, readers will have access to Kobo’s five million ebook and audiobook titles. Kobo’s ebooks, audiobooks and ereaders will also be sold via the Booktopia site. Previously, Booktopia sold ebooks via the Booktopia Reader App, which worked with Adobe Digital Editions. The retailer previously only sold audiobooks as physical CD sets and did not have them available for digital download.

Booktopia CEO Tony Nash said: ‘We are pleased to be partnering with Rakuten Kobo and expanding our digital footprint in Australia, launching a new offering of eBooks, audiobooks and devices for our customers. Together with Kobo, we’re exploring new ways to make reading easier for customers by offering exceptional experiences however they prefer to shop and read.’

Kobo president and CEO Michael Tamblyn said, ‘Collaborative partnership with booksellers has been hugely successful in other markets like Canada, where we were founded by and continue to partner with the book retailer Indigo; the Netherlands where we are partnered with Bol.com; or France and Spain where we’ve partnered with Fnac, to name a few.’

‘If a book retailer is fielding a competitive eReading experience in the face of global competition, we are usually working with them,’ Tamblyn said. ‘We look forward to this next phase of growth in Australia.’

Booktopia and its subsidiary Angus & Robertson is Kobo’s only Australian partner. A previous arrangement between Kobo and the Australian Booksellers Association, first announced in 2014, is no longer active.

Category: Local news