Kobo Writing Life vs KDP
- KDP holds the dominant share of English ebook sales, especially in the US.
- Kobo is strong in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the Netherlands, and through Rakuten partners.
- KDP Select requires ebook exclusivity in exchange for Kindle Unlimited page reads.
- Kobo Writing Life offers author-controlled promotional pricing and promo tab submissions.
- Royalty rates are broadly comparable, 70 percent in most price bands on both.
KDP is the largest single ebook market and the only route into Kindle Unlimited, but Select requires exclusivity. Kobo Writing Life reaches readers KDP does not, particularly in Canada, Australia, and Europe, and gives authors more direct promotional control. Most wide authors publish on both; Select authors cannot.
Chapter i·Why it matters
The real decision is not Kobo versus KDP, it is exclusive versus wide. Choosing KDP Select rules Kobo out entirely for that title's ebook. Writers often make that call once, at launch, without knowing that Kobo promo tabs and regional strength can carry a series in markets Amazon does not dominate.
Chapter ii·What to include
- Whether Kindle Unlimited page reads plausibly beat wide sales for your genre.
- Regional readership: check where your existing readers are before deciding.
- Kobo promo tab submission windows, which are author-driven and worth using.
- Whether you can go wide with book one and Select with a prequel or vice versa.
- The 90-day Select term and what leaving costs in ranking.
- Metadata parity across platforms so the book is findable in both.
Chapter iii·Example
A cozy mystery author left Select after two terms, listed on Kobo, and found 22 percent of her first-quarter wide revenue came from Canada and Australia, markets that had been invisible to her inside Kindle Unlimited.
In WriteLoom
See your book the way a browsing reader will
WriteLoom tracks which channels a title is live on and what is still pending, so a wide launch does not lose a store in the shuffle.
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