The Kobo self-publishing chaos is continuing but with a lot of anomalies as some titles start to reappear.
Tens of thousands of self-published titles have been taken off the main Kobo websites and some of the company’s partners around the world have shut down their websites, notably WH Smith in the UK, which has closed its entire site, including stationery and greeting card sales, and Whitcoulls in New Zealand, which has suspended ebook sales through its site.
However, other international partners are still offering Kobo self-published titles, with Chapters Indigo in Canada and Bookworld in Australia featuring some, but not all, of the ebooks I have published through Kobo while Kobo itself is still not showing these titles, which are non-fiction and entirely non-erotica-related, from its own sites. Some self-published books are reappearing on the Kobo sites but it’s a patchy picture at present.
In an ironic twist, Kobo sent out its monthly Writing Life Digest offering advice for self-published authors. The lead article in this ill-timed publication is an interesting piece by H M Ward, who is not only self-published and still available on Kobo but also the top-selling author in the New Adult Romance category this year and one of the best-selling writers overall.
The article was actually published about a month earlier on the Kobo website but it is a digest after all. Holly Ward has sold over two million books this year, with a staggering total of 500,000 books sold in one month (May) alone. She’s a prolific writer who produces series titles and her wildly popular raunchy romances for YAs are Kobo Writing Life best-sellers. She does, of course, publish across the ebook spectrum and earlier this year she had two books in the New York Times Top 20.
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