Rakuten Kobo returns to U.S. retail as sales double

sseam_carver about 3 hours ago 62 commentsRead Article on publishersweekly.com

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https://www.reddit.com/r/kobo/comments/1w20azv/the_doubling_...

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Discussion (62 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

Night_Thastus•36 minutes ago

I got the Libra Color awhile back. I rediscovered my love of reading. Chewed through dozens of Star Trek books (some are quite good!). And a comic, which surprised me with the color and resolution the Libra offered.

The store seems to work well and the prices are pretty cheap, but you can also load them manually through something like Calibre if you already have a collection of ebooks.

I love how thin and light it is. I originally thought the small size would be a downside, but being able to fit it almost anywhere has made it great for plane/train rides or any kind of trip.

The battery lasts quite a long time, though it seems to discharge quickly if you don't use it for a while.

I think my favorite part is that it's just super intuitive. It feels purpose-built and does everything in the way I expect it to.

Overall, highly recommend. Very good product.

jjice•about 2 hours ago

I got a Kindle Paperwhite as a gift from my work and I fell in love with e-readers. Then I really didn't like how Amazon was locking down getting your own epubs onto the device (it's only gotten worse), so I quickly found Kobos were an excellent device for my use case. I found that buying ePubs online was way more available than I would have thought and now I get to keep my digital books. Just drag and drop them onto the Kobo.

Kobo also has a "sideload mode" that (despite the slightly confusing name) just remove all online features all together.

criddell•about 1 hour ago

> Amazon was locking down getting your own epubs onto the device

Curious about what has changed? I've only ever used the email method and that continues to work.

bix6•about 1 hour ago

Same here re email. Though I’m considering switching to kobo anyways cuz Bezos sucks.

toomuchtodo•about 1 hour ago

I have been hoping for an open e-reader to be built, and it appears someone is building one: https://hackaday.com/2026/07/14/open-book-touch-makes-crowd-... (Joey Castillo’s Open Book project, no affiliation, I just like open/sovereign tech stacks)

> But what you won’t get is locked down with DRM — the Open Book Touch uses standard EPUB and TXT files loaded from a micro SD card, and thanks to the WiFi-enabled ESP32 at its heart, it offers up a web interface that lets you manage your collection over the network.

Kobo works great in my experience though for those looking for a turnkey open-ish commercial solution.

thg•about 1 hour ago

It no longer does for the first few generations of Kindles. My Kindle Keyboard (16 years old, but it still works and I still use it almost daily) is essentially a useless paperweight now, as far as Amazon is concerned. De-registering it will brick it and they shut down the "send file to e-mail" service, too. Can no longer buy and download books off Amazon either (they shut that down in 2024, afaik).

If not for Calibre, I would have absolutely no option of ever getting new books on it.

dominotw•about 2 hours ago

what you mean by locking down? your epub is your epub . i read third party epubs on kindle all the time. i am not sure if i am missign somethign here

JoeBOFH•about 1 hour ago

Amazon is making it harder and harder to copy third party books onto the devices.

dominotw•about 1 hour ago

by doing what? i do it all that time. did one this morning.

kubik369•about 1 hour ago

> i read third party epubs on kindle all the time.

No, you do not. Kindle has never and, as far as I am aware, to this day, does not support epubs. The only way to read epubs on your Kindle is to convert them either by Amazon's Send to Kindle service or through software like Calibre.

ssl-3•26 minutes ago

It has the appearance of working like this:

  1.  Epub of a book exists on a computer
  2.  User takes simple action to read that book on a Kindle device
  3.  ???
  4.  User succeeds at reading that same book

When step 3 is basically invisible, "reading an epub on a kindle" seems like a rational way to view things.

Like when Github invisibly renders Markdown into HTML for display in my browser: It seems rational to say that I'm reading a Markdown document.

Or when I print that same HTML onto paper. I'm not reading the HTML nor the Postscript intermediates: I'm still reading a Markdown document.

jm4•about 1 hour ago

Love Kobo. I switched from Kindle to the Libra Colour a while back. It's a superior device and I don't have to give money to Amazon. It's more responsive, it has physical buttons for turning pages and the screen looks great. The built in book store is ok. I haven't had trouble finding anything, but there aren't many reviews if you're into that sort of thing. I was able to sideload my Kindle library easily too.

strictnein•about 2 hours ago

Interesting observation here. I still read a lot, but airplanes have become a place I rarely do. I used to always pick up a book every time I flew and would finish it on the flight home. I would still much rather read a real book on the beach than doomscroll though.

> "We're losing the person who reads one book a year," he says. "And that was the person who bought their one Tom Clancy novel when they went on vacation, because you needed something to read on the plane because there was nothing else to do on the plane. Now that the plane has Wi-Fi, and so does that beach, that person is scrolling, not reading."

bluefirebrand•38 minutes ago

Personally, I have basically stopped reading since my 20s, but I used to read a ton. I like pulp fantasy and scifi and noir detectives and other nonsense, no one seems to write that sort of thing anymore. I loved Dragonlance when it was around

I don't want fantasy with "the most unique magic system ever created" or "the most complex society" I want to read about dudes and ladies with huge swords and magic killing dragons and conquering kingdoms

I get it, I'm boring but I guarantee the whole "men don't read anymore" would be less true if publishers still put out books like I'm describing

Instead when I go into a bookstore for the one time a year I shop for my wife for Christmas, I'm greeted by the likes of "Morning Glory Milking Farm"

cattenwallen•27 minutes ago

I mean they 100% exist. Brandon Sanderson isn't some excessively complicated fantasy world (despite what fans may say, Sanderson is very approachable). Dungeon Crawler Carl is all the rage. Hell, The Locked Tomb trilogy has tons of big swords and stuff. The reason why morning glory milking farm and other smut exists on bookshelves now is that women were finding and buying the small stuff when no one gave them the time of day. If you want your stuff back on shelves, start buying them, for they 100% exists even if it's a self-publishing sword and sorcery guy.

Pfhortune•about 2 hours ago

I love that Kobos can still be set up completely offline. At the setup screen you can mount the device, set a flag in the config file, unmount/reboot, and boom, it's ready for your books.

My Clara BW is my daily driver. As much as I'd like to use an open reader, their rendering and screen quality are still not quite as polished as the corpo options.

rationalist•about 2 hours ago

I just bought a Kobo Clara Color after purchasing various Kindles for years.

It requires an online setup (account).

A quick search did not find what your saying. Can you please post a how-to or link one (that I couldn't find)?

Pfhortune•about 1 hour ago

https://qtekfun.com/random-stuff/bypass-kobo/

This guide is for a kobo that is already set up, but the procedure is mostly the same from step 5 onwards for a new device.

The only step that I think is missing from this guide is that you have to select a language before connecting the Kobo via USB, in my experience. Mass storage mode should work once you have picked a language.

I also did the same on a factory reset, used Libra Color, and that worked well. On that device I had to do some trickery to get the notes feature to work, which I think involved loading up some dictionary files. I can't readily find the guide I followed for that.

rationalist•39 minutes ago

Thank you

koalp•about 1 hour ago

It’s nice that they have it but strange that it’s hidden.

It would be better if it was an option on the setup screen, and even better if it was the default option and if the login screen was in the parameters.

Because as an hidden option I always fear that they remove it and that we have to find an alternative. And so far DIY e-reader do not seem great.

lynndotpy•about 1 hour ago

Yep, this is the reason I chose a Kobo.

hedgehog•18 minutes ago

Does anyone here have experience building custom apps for the Kobo? I'm considering getting an e-ink device as a way to shift document reviews off of my regular LCD screens and away from my desk.

hn_submit•about 2 hours ago

Amazon wiping people's e-books they had already bought was probably the straw that broke the camel's back. Yeah, they swore to never do it again but what's that worth?

I've been steering clear from Kindle even though their devices are an attractive buy. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if Amazon left the e-reader market in a few years since their Kindles are tainted.

criddell•about 1 hour ago

The camel is doing just fine. Amazon ereaders have 70+% market share.

kitd•about 2 hours ago

Fun fact: I searched for Kobo Clara on Amazon, and the algorithm has labelled it "Amazon's choice". A subtle agreement with you maybe :)

ryanmcbride•about 2 hours ago

My wife and I both had kindles since they were first a thing and we both switched to Kobo a few years ago. So nice not getting ads.

guillybarres•about 2 hours ago

70% women is about what I see in bookstores, and frequently the main display cases are geared towards genres more popular among women, like romantasy.

tjridesbikes•about 1 hour ago

I bought a Clara Color when Amazon decided that my Kindle Keyboard was no longer worthy of receiving ebooks that I purchased. I've loved it so far. I love that was even able to load my jailbroken epub library to the Kobo. I paid for the damned book. Let me read it!

miladyincontrol•about 1 hour ago

A possibly minor nitpick but given women are the majority of their customer base, please make these things more aesthetic. Doesnt even have to be a whole redesign, give it some color, even just an on-trend shade would go far to make it a lot more fashionable.

rationalist•37 minutes ago

What I would appreciate is them not plastering the logo/name on the front where it's staring you in the face as you try to read. I already bought the damn device, stop advertising (harassing) to me!

(Both my previous generation Kindle Paperwhite that I switched from and the Kobo Clara Colour that I switched to, do this.)

Then if they could make the glass screen flush with the front like the Paperwhite, that would be awesome too.

TFNA•28 minutes ago

Kobo covers are the main way people get that aesthetic oomph.

Hasz•about 2 hours ago

Kobo Elipsa (1) is my preferred reader for PDFs/papers in particular. Genuinely good product, software works well enough and presents as USB mass storage, long battery life. Other than perhaps a more responsive, USB-C pen, IDK what else you could improve on.

throwawayk7h•about 1 hour ago

I hacked my old kindle from a decade ago, highly recommended to anyone who wants to unlock it. There are guides online.

int32_64•about 2 hours ago

If you aren't reading comics I wouldn't recommend color e-readers yet. The screens are dimmer and have a noticeable filter over them.

erghjunk•about 2 hours ago

I bought a kobo (2022 maybe?) pretty much entirely because (at the time anyway) it had the best on-device integration with Overdrive. not sure if kindle, nook, etc still require you to browse and check out books on a secondary device and then sync but I appreciated the kobo getting rid of that step. still using it and still happy.

hosel•about 2 hours ago

Is there anything out there comparable to my original Kindle Oasis? Mine has lived in airplane mode its whole life and I’m afraid for when it finally dies

criddell•about 1 hour ago

I've never found one.

Kobo has the Sage which seems similar at first glance, but unfortunately it also has a stylus. It's closer to a Kindle Scribe or a Remarkable device.

TFNA•23 minutes ago

Sage was discontinued already some time ago.

criddell•about 1 hour ago

I switched to buying books from Kobo this year because removing DRM from books bought at Amazon is getting too difficult and unreliable.

throwaway173738•about 2 hours ago

Is there a way to get kids books on Kobo? Every time we fly we carry like 10 pounds of board books to keep my son entertained. It would be awesome to have an ebook reader with his board books and other stuff on it.

rationalist•about 1 hour ago

Aren't those designed fit the page, in other words, to keep it looking the same, it would have to be squished (and unreadable) to fit on the screen?

usern20260720•about 1 hour ago

I just got the biggest one they sell. I wanted to fulfil my dream of turning pages using a remote. It turns out though, that the device is switching off both wifi and bluetooth every few minutes (Maybe only when there is no wifi available) and there’s no devmodeon capable of fixing that.

mparnisari•about 2 hours ago

Kobo has daily deals going. Every day I open my wishlist and sort by price lowest to highest, and every few days I buy something.

TFNA•22 minutes ago

Of course one pays for the actual electronic device, but after that, why buy ebooks? Nearly everything one would want to read is already on the shadow libraries.

fred_is_fred•about 2 hours ago

I bought one in July, I chose Kobo because it's hackable and you can ssh in. So far I've had as much fun with that as with reading.

cosmic_cheese•about 2 hours ago

They’re also just more user friendly in general. I have a nearly decade old Kobo that still serves its purpose well and I love how it shows up as a mass storage device when plugged into my computer. No clunky management software (Calibre may be functional, but its UI is godawful) or file conversions required, you just manage plain old epubs in your file browser. That functionality can’t randomly vanish one day, either (unlike e.g. Amazon’s email-to-Kindle service). It’s great.

As a side effect of its openness I’ve bought more books through the Kobo store than I would have otherwise. A perfect counter example is my Oculus Quest 2 which I go out of my way to not buy games from its associated marketplace on; as long as that device is hard-tethered to Facebook and its software, I’m better off as using it as a “dumb” headset with VR purchases going to PC marketplaces like Steam.

MrDOS•about 1 hour ago

> plain old epubs

Kobo devices ship two different rendering engines: the obsolete, appallingly bad Adobe Reader Mobile SDK (RMSDK), and their own, bespoke, WebKit-based renderer. By default, files with an .epub extension are rendered with RMSDK. Consequently, you'll get all sorts of weird issues. Some of the ones I've encountered: I've had cover images not displaying in the library, misbehaving internal links (footnotes), inability to override typefaces/text size.

Easy fix: rename the file to .kepub.epub[0].

Slightly more involved fix: run the file through Kepubify[1] first. This tool makes further tweaks to the books to enable a few other features, like remaining read time estimation.

[0]: https://github.com/kobolabs/epub-spec#sideloading-for-testin...

[1]: https://pgaskin.net/kepubify/

cosmic_cheese•3 minutes ago

Interesting, I wasn't aware of this, but it's good to know. My needs haven't been demanding enough to notice a difference.

delecti•about 1 hour ago

You can't SSH into kindles anymore? I know that used to be a thing.

rpdillon•about 2 hours ago

I had no idea! I'd switched from Kindle to Boox because Boox runs Android, which is more hackable, but if Kobo supports SSH, I'll have to give it another look!

juiceland•about 2 hours ago

It’s a shame that Boox disregards GPL2 intentionally. Wish we had more hardware makers that weren’t hostile to free software.

[0]https://x.com/puffnfresh/status/1587064729977044994?s=46

fred_is_fred•about 2 hours ago

It's busybox underneath so you can hack on it but you can't run full apps in the Android sense.

Seattle3503•about 2 hours ago

How do you like your Boox device?

unethical_ban•about 1 hour ago

If my Kindle ever breaks I'm going to look at Kobo. I prefer whatever ecosystem sells me the ebooks that are easiest to de-DRM so I can own what I've paid for. A decade ago, that was Amazon, but they have locked down a lot.

criddell•about 1 hour ago

I probably will move to Kobo eventually as well. My current device is the Oasis and I wish I had bought a spare. I was always hoping Amazon would update it with a USB-C port which I would have bought on day 1.

I know it's such a small issue that no politician will ever take it on, but I really wish there would be some legislation around forcing interoperability and ebook transfer rights.

You can buy a Blu Ray disk and it's going to work in your player. Ebooks should be like that too. And I should be able to give away my ebook collection the same way I can my BR collection.

Larrikin•about 2 hours ago

Kavita, Tailscale, KoReader with OPDS, on the Kobo is basically a perfect system for organizing ebooks, transferring, and reading.

alpineman•about 2 hours ago

No one reasonable wants to support Bezos and his Melania funding

AlexB138•about 2 hours ago

Perhaps we should link to the article: https://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/digital/content...

dang•25 minutes ago

Thanks! Good idea. I'll put the submitted URL in the toptext instead.

bryanlarsen•about 2 hours ago

Doubling a really small number is not particularly impressive. The article doesn't have numbers, but I believe that Canadian sales of Kobo still significantly exceed American sales despite the doubling.