Kobo is like the Rodney Dangerfield of eBookstores — they get no respect! Here they are, pumping out app after app for every smartphone platform, pushing the social envelope with “Reading Life”, created a touch-based ebook reader…yet they’re still an also-ran. As Nate over at The Digital Reader notes, Kobo never gets mentioned alongside B&N and Amazon, and his sources indicate Kobo has, at most, 5% of the ebook market.
Still, for a tiny presence Kobo has a big voice. They promote themselves heavily, so they often get coverage on blogs, but in my conversations with everyday people I’ve only had one person tell me they shop at Kobo, and it was mainly when they sent out coupons in the pre-Agency Model days. Note, she didn’t phrase it quite like that, more along the lines of “I usually buy books from B&N and Amazon on my iPad, but sometimes I check Kobo if there’s a good deal.”
Yet Kobo seems to remain the third fiddle in terms of sales and marketshare. So I’d like to unofficially poll our Gear Diary readers. Where do you shop for ebooks? Do you stick with B&N and Amazon, or do you branch out to iBooks and Kobo? And if you shop someplace other than B&N or Amazon, let us know in the comments what draws you to that store, along with whether you read on a tablet or an ebook reader. I recognize this is a very unscientific poll, but I’m curious how close our readers track to the broader reports.
I was shopping almost exclusively at Amazon, mostly because of the selection. I shopped only once at B&N. As time has gone one and they’ve improved the selection, I find myself shopping more and more at the Apple iBooks store. B&N and Kobo have never really been in my mix at all mostly because of selection issues (which B&N has improved on significantly).
I have a Kindle (two actually) and a Kobo. Only reason I bought the Kobo was that it was 1) on sale at Borders during their going-out-of-business sale, and 2) I could get library books with it.
Now that Kindle gets library books, I havent used the Kobo much. The Kobo is a very nice ereader, but I dont think it’s as nice as the Kindle is. What I use the Kobo for now is to read free fan fiction that I get off the internet. But, I dont read on it as often as I thought I would. Thinking of selling it so I can put some money towards a new Kindle Touch, or a Kindle Fire.
I will NEVER buy a book from iBooks (ok, never say never and all that acknowledged) unless they have some major discount on something better than everywhere else. Since that isn’t likely to happen.
I have a nook Touch and my family all have nooks, so we are BN centric … plus it is great visiting the local shop and browsing with our nooks.
But I have a load of stuff on Kindle as well … which will come in handy soon enough with the Kindle Fire 😉
My primary, hell it my only, ebook store is Amazon. I love my Kindle Keyboard!
I was Peanut Press / eReader for years, but we all know what happened there! I am now all Amazon Kindle. I don’t see them folding up or changing things; I think they are the best choice. =)
Kindle. Period. I can use it pretty much everywhere. That matters. A lot.
… And if you haven’t already, don’t forget that you can strip the DRM from your eReader/Peanut books and continue to enjoy them on your Kindle! (Thank you Thomas, for helping me with mine!)
For ebooks I buy, it is entirely on B&N since I have a nook. But probably 30-50% of my ebooks come from project gutenberg.
I must be one of the 5%! Kobo is my primary store for two reasons: (1) Its prices are generally better for me, not living in the US and (2) I use an HTC Flyer and the bookstore is integrated into its inbuilt Reader app. B&N isn’t available where I live, so I don’t know if that would have any impact on my first reason.