A competitor to Kindle Unlimited, Kobo Plus first launched in 2017 in select European countries. The service allows for unlimited reading of ebooks and audiobooks for $9.99 per month. Unfortunately, Kobo Plus subscribers do not have access to every single title available for purchase through Kobo, but there is a library right now of 1.3 million ebooks and 100,000 audiobooks. Kobo Plus is so far available in Australia, Belgium, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, the UK, and the US. Authors need not be exclusive to Kobo to be included in Kobo Plus, as they do with Amazon and Kindle Unlimited. Author Monica Leonelle has a good write-up on whether authors should enroll.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
