Kobo Really Is Biggest and Cheapest
from INDEX // mb Ideas on Publishing Books in Canada

The Kobo ad in the weekend’s Globe and Mail trumpets that Kobo offers both the “biggest selection of ebooks for your iPad” and the “best selection and prices for ebooks in Canada.” Not only are both statements true, they are true by a staggering margin. I was shocked to see how far Kobo is ahead of both iBooks and the Kindle — particularly for Canadian readers looking to buy from this weekend’s Globe and Mail best seller lists.**

The iBookstore remains unavailable to Canadian customers. The iBooks app is accruing some terse 1-star reviews in iTunes from Canadians who expected to be able to read books natively once they bought their iPads. The iPad went on sale in Canada just last week, but it has been four months since Apple advertised for an iBooks Manager for the Canadian territory. No word on if that position has been filled but whoever gets that job will have to play catch up in a hurry. And the pressure isn’t likely to abate anytime soon. It is widely expected that Apple will announce — as early as next week — that iBooks will be extended to US owners of the iPhone and the iPod. Right now, with tumbleweeds in the Canadian iBookstore, Kobo is golden.

In the Kindle v Kobo battle, Kobo is also killing. Last July I compared the availability of 20 Globe and Mail bestsellers at the two stores. Fifteen were available at Amazon and ten were available at Kobo. A year later I have expanded the list to include all six of the Globe’s regular lists (see table below). Of the 52 unique books, Kobo sells 46 (88%) and Amazon sells 28 (54%). In only two cases did Amazon stock a title that Kobo didn’t — The Big Short and Russel Brand’s My Booky Wook. In twenty instances Kobo sold a book that was unavailable to Canadians on the Kindle.
Read the rest of this Canadian report here.