Bookshop.org Reaffirms Plan To Link With Kobo, Promising E‑book Support This Year

Bookshop.org says it has reached a commercial agreement with Kobo and expects to enable purchases for the popular e‑reader before year’s end, a development that would let readers buy digital titles from independent bookstores directly on their Kobo devices. The news could matter to many customers who bought Kobos specifically to avoid reading on phones and tablets and to funnel sales to neighborhood booksellers. The timeline had been unclear after prior delays and a recent removal of a target year from Bookshop.org’s website.

Kobo earned a reputation among some readers as the e‑reader that played nicely with indie shop catalogs, but that perception relies on an older purchase flow that required buyers to register a Kobo account through a bookseller’s site. That route has largely disappeared: a number of independent stores stopped using the method years ago, and some Kobo owners, myself included, have found it difficult or impossible to buy new e‑books from local shops for newly purchased devices. Many readers prefer dedicated readers for their screens, battery life and outdoor readability — features phones and tablets don’t match.

Bookshop.org launched an e‑book offering in its mobile apps, but integrating sales so titles are deliverable to Kobo hardware has been postponed multiple times. The project was first set for 2025, then pushed beyond that, and for a spell this year its status looked uncertain after the bookseller edited its site to drop a specific target. I reached out to Bookshop.org for an update, and the company’s founder responded that the parties have now settled the commercial framework and are moving on the technical work.

According to the company’s account, the holdup centered on negotiating terms with publishers and allocating engineering effort to ensure whatever is built meets publishers’ digital‑rights conditions. The founder said teams on both sides are committed and that the engineering schedule will determine a public launch date. An independent digital‑publishing consultant I spoke with said these sorts of integrations often hinge on how e‑book files are packaged and authenticated, and that once contracts are in place the remaining effort is usually coding and testing rather than new policy work.

Kobo owners do have other ways to acquire reading material in the meantime. Many titles sold without copy protection can be sideloaded to Kobo devices, several public library catalogs still work with Kobo through systems such as OverDrive, and certain online retailers deliver files in formats Kobo supports. If supporting local shops is the priority, readers could choose Android‑based e‑readers that can run Bookshop.org’s app directly, letting purchases flow to the device without workaround.

For now, customers are left waiting but optimistic. I bought a Kobo Libra Colour because of its screen and battery performance, and I’d like to buy e‑books from my neighborhood stores rather than maintaining a stack of paper copies. Kobo says it serves about 12 million readers in nearly 200 countries, and if Bookshop.org’s renewed timetable holds, those readers who care about independent bookstores may soon have a straightforward way to do business with them.