Kobo announced today that they are launching a new Book Club in the 1st quarter of 2012. This will allow anyone who has purchased a Kobo Touch e-reader to select a free ebook every month for the entire year. This is available to residents of Canada and the United States who activate their Kobo eReader Touch or Kobo Touch with Offers today through March 31, 2012, regardless of where the unit was purchased.
The new Kobo Book Club has been a project closely under-wraps for the past six months while they company has secured publisher and author rights. The initial list of publishers include e-Reads, F+W Publishing, Gooseberry Patch, Harvard Business Review, Kensington Publishing, and New World City. Some popular indie authors have also committed their body of works to the program including; Blake Crouch, J.A. Konrath, Shayna Krishnasamy, and Phyllis Smallman. Kobo intends to merely launch with these partners and then secure more once they gauge whether or not the program is successful.
Kobo has an amazing family of eReaders and with the launch of the 2012 Book Club there’s never been a better time to buy a Kobo Touch eReader,” said Michael Tamblyn, Executive Vice President Content, Sales & Merchandising, Kobo. “Our Kobo Touch eReaders bring the ultimate in eReading value to readers around the world, and this new book club is another example of how we can take that great experience and make it even better for Kobo Touch eReader owners.”
The new Kobo Book Club is an amazing idea and puts free content in the hands of people who participate in its ecosystem. Every month a select list of books will available to choose from, so you will not have unfeathered access to the entire database. January 2012’s book club selections include: “Pride and Prejudice – The Wild and Wanton Edition”; “HBR’s 10 Must Reads: On Managing People”; and “Star Wars Vs. Star Trek.” The idea of only allowing a certain number of books available on a monthly basis may stimulate the formation of real-world bookclubs to talk about the characters and books but I can see an even better factor. Kobo Pulse is a new feature found on the Kobo Vox and their iPad application and gives you a chance to talk to people in real time who are reading the same book as you are. I can see these limited number of books allowing people to be more social about it and using Pulse as a virtual reading club. Once you select the book and download it to your account you can also use the Kobo iPad application and use many of its unique features, such as the stream.
Amazon has also released a monthly ebook program but did not do the due diligence that Kobo has done and alienated all of the Big Six Publishers. We might not see Penguin contributing books to either program but at least with Kobo we are getting a huge selection of free books to choose from on a monthly basis.
Michael Kozlowski is the Editor in Chief of Good e-Reader. He has been writing about audiobooks and e-readers for the past ten years. His articles have been picked up by major and local news sources and websites such as the CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and Verge.