I am surprised nobody picked up on this here yet. (Watch me embarrass myself by missing the thread.) Kobo Plus went live today. If you have your WiFi turned on, you probably got a full screen ad on your Kobo promoting it, but I saw it on Twitter first.
The price tiers are reasonable. $7.99 for Kobo Plus Reading and only $9.99 for Reading and Listening. The first month is free.
You access Kobo Plus in Discovery in a tab next to Overdrive. The price of a book will be replaced with “Read with Kobo Plus”. If you still want to buy the book, you can reach that option by tapping on the … This much has probably been covered already by our Canadian and European friends.
I was curious about what books would be offered since Kindle Unlimited demands exclusivity. There was the ubiquitous sea of Indy published romance books and mysteries, but I was surprised to see lots of manga and light novels in the offering. I haven’t had a chance to explore other genres yet. I didn’t see a way to browse other genres that Kobo didn’t recommend. Light novels were right up my alley, but I don’t know why Kobo thought I’d be interested in beefcake laden books with steamy titles.
I did notice some glitches. Many books were listed on the Kobo Plus tabs’s front page as being part of Plus, but when you selected the book, they weren’t available to borrow. However, these same ebooks are available for Plus on the website. If you encounter this glitch, consider this a workaround.
The syncing is instantaneous when adding a book to your Kobo Plus from the website. By the time I switched from my iPhone’s mobile browser to my Kobo Clara HD, the books were already there. Seamless integration with Kobo iOS apps, too.
I’m going to give the service a thorough try. Whether I stay depends on the diversity in offerings and whether any major publishers are participating. Then again, they don’t participate often with KU, so I’m not expecting much. What I do expect is a lot of excitement in the Indy space because Plus doesn’t seem to demand exclusivity. You can release wide and still participate in Plus. That’s my initial impression. I’m sure somebody will come along and correct me if I’m mistaken.
https://www.kobo.com/us/en/plus