If you follow the ebook business closely over the years then you know it’s not unusual for an ebook store to go out of business. It happens fairly often, and Kobo has benefited a lot from some of those closings.
Kobo absorbed Sony’s accounts when the Sony ebook store closed down back in 2014. They also took over for Borders when they shut down a few years before that, and in 2016 they took over accounts for the Waterstones ebook store in the UK.
Things have been really quiet from Kobo over the past several years, but they seem to be doing well so there shouldn’t be any cause for concern, and they’re owned by Rakuten, a company that’s often referred to as the “Amazon of Japan”, but you never really know what the future is going to bring, and Rakuten has been known to shut down some of their other online stores.
What would happen if they decided to close the Kobo ebook store? Is there another “Kobo” standing by to absorb customer accounts like they did for Sony and Borders and Waterstones? Or would some other company step in and purchase Kobo?
When some ebook stores close down they just give a notice saying to download your ebooks before you lose access to them for good. If you own a large library of books it can be a problem to download them all individually, but at least that’s usually an option.
Some people make a habit of creating backups of all their purchased ebooks in case they were to lose access to them at some point in the future. You never think that’s going to happen until it does.
Hopefully Kobo doesn’t close down anytime soon, and there’s been no indication of that happening, but it can’t be easy making a profit in a small ebook market that’s dominated by Amazon.
I still miss Fictionwise, the OG ebook store. I used to use that when my only reader was a Palm PDA.
I’m one of those people who make personal backups of all their purchased ebooks, so any closing of a store won’t affect me directly. I have seen several stores where I’ve bought ebooks go belly up, but I still have everything I’ve bought from them, backed up in multiple places. Still, it would be a great pity if Kobo closed their digital doors; one store less where you can download and disinfect your purchases. Amazon tries to make it harder and harder; it’s still possible to deDRM Amazon ebooks, but no one knows for how long.
I will never buy anything I can’t remove the DRM from.
My books are backed up, so no worries. I still have stuff I purchased from Barnes and Noble before they disabled downloads, and from Fictionwise, and from Sony.
I highly encourage anyone who buys ebooks to download, deDRM and back up!
I do try to purchase from Kobo where possible, as I wish them to stick around!
That short you took on Kobo not performing huh?
hah! my thought too.
not sure of the purpose here other than fud.
I don’t know what you guys are referring to.
“What Would Happen if Kindle Closed Their eBook Store?”
^equally valuable postulation^
Is there any reasonable cause to consider the possibility of this?
Funny thing is, that’s how the idea for this article started. I see people saying to backup Kindle ebooks because of the possibility, but I just don’t see that happening, and I never see anyone saying the same about Kobo. I think it’s much more likely to happen to Kobo considering Amazon has like an 85% market share.
I buy from Kobo often but like the comment above, remove the drm to keep it mine and backed up.
There are to many services offering purchases which disappear when they do. Buying means keeping, otherwise it’s rental.
I’m sure someone will step in if Kobo disappeared but I can’t see myself ever using Amazon for that.
Always backup your books 😉
I’m not only the guy that makes a backup of purchased ebooks, I remove “the bug” as well, and save them without DRM. Just in case.
Backing up books with DRM is pointless. The DRM provider may stop their service at any time, or go out of business, and then the DRMed books would be unreadable. So if one backs their books up at all, one should always remove the DRM.
My already purchased books are backed up, but I’d have to figure out where I’d shop for new ones. I don’t want to use Amazon and wouldn’t go back to BN.
This article is very stressful!! I don’t own a computer and wouldn’t know the right computer or laptop to get. I’ve read thru Calibre instructions and it all seems like Greek and you have to have a lot of faith in the websites you have to go to download things. I have most of my books in Kobo’s bookstore. The thought of Kobo closing is just horrible.
Any computer/laptop running Windows 10/11 or recent MacOS would do. Not a Chromebook.
I’d like to think the worse that could happen is that Kobo would be spun off as an independent company. Competition is badly needed for Amazon!
I wish that Kobo could get their eReaders into stores like Best Buy to increase Kobo’s market share. In that vein, it doesn’t seem like the Walmart deal has been fruitful for Kobo. When looking for a new reader, I tried in vain to find one in a Walmart, as I would much prefer to buy electronics from a brick and mortar store instead of online. This is the reason I strongly considered Kindles and Nooks before I bought my Clara 2E, which I like very much.
I was personally affected by multiple ebookstores closing, including Sony, Fictionwise, BooksOnBoard and eBookWise. However, Amazon was my first warning. When they 1st sold ebooks (prior to Kindle), I bought one. Some time later, I went to re-download it and the previously non-expiring bookshelf was gone. After some digging around and online investigation, I discovered that Amazon had shut down the ebookstore and bookshelves and, apparently, they sent out emails to customers so people could back up their stuff,
I never received that email. Luckily, it was only 1 book, but I realized that if it happened once, it could happen again. In addition. the closing of eBookWise and the death of my eBookwise e-reader taught me not to buy any ebook format that hadn’t been cracked. (I had to re-buy the 1st 3 books of A Song of Ice and Fire.)
So, any ebook I purchase and any free ebook that I would hate to lose gets set free from its DRM chains and backed up. If not for that ability, I would not feel comfortable buying so many ebooks.