Kobo Plus is an subscription service in Italy. This program gives booklovers unlimited access to hundreds of thousands of eBook and Kobo Audiobook titles for as little as €9,99 per month, in partnership with Mondadori Store. Digital content can be read or listened to on the Kobo apps for Android or IOS, or their new e-readers, the Kobo Sage, Libra 2 and Elipsa. Everything is synced between all of your devices, which is very handy. Since launching their partnership in 2012, Rakuten Kobo and Mondadori Store have worked together to provide Italy’s best digital reading experience. Kobo Plus marks the first service in Italy to provide a combined reading and listening subscription offering at an affordable price and single point of access.
To build the Kobo Plus catalogue, Rakuten Kobo worked with the country’s biggest publishers—including Montessori, Garzanti, Longanesi, Feltrinelli, and many others—along with the best Italian independent publishers, like Sur. The catalogue also features Kobo Originals, like Silvia Volpi’s Il silenzio dell’erba, and eBooks published through Kobo Writing Life—stories from Rakuten Kobo’s own publishing platform that allows authors to self-publish—as part of the subscription service.
The new Kobo Plus collection features a breadth of stories including literary classics and popular genre page-turners such as Ilaria Tuti’s Fiori sopra l’inferno; Ken Follett’s Kingsbridge novels, including as Pillars of the Earth; Non è la fine del mondo by Alessia Gazzola; and La guerra dei Courtney by Wilbur Smith, among many more. Other authors featured within the catalogue include Fabio Volo, Cristiana Capotondi, Melania Mazzucco, Gianrico Carofiglio and Alice Basso, while great actors like Anna Bonaiuto and Fabrizio Gifuni bring stories to life as narrators of Kobo Audiobooks.
“Italy was the first country that taught us how to embrace digital reading to make reading lives better during the difficult times of the lockdown, and we have seen significant growth in digital reading as a result. It’s why we are so proud to be launching Kobo Plus here – it is our way of expanding on our commitment to Italy by making a great reading experience even better. The all-you-can-enjoy subscription allows Italian booklovers to explore new titles and genres risk-free, while also introducing them to Kobo Audiobooks and Kobo Originals selected and curated by skilled and committed book experts,” said Michael Tamblyn, CEO, Rakuten Kobo. Tamblyn continued: “Our mission has always been to make the reading experience better and more accessible to everyone. By working with equally committed partners, like Mondadori Store, we can continue to connect more authors to more Italian readers.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
