Huge news in the world of e-publishing today. In a direct address to Amazon’s domination of the e-book market in the US, Rakuten, the company that owns Kobo, has partnered with Wal-Mart to distribute e-books, audiobooks, and physical books online.

What does that mean for self-published authors? The possibilities are vast. Not only will we have a wider audience to discover our books, perhaps Amazon will be forced to relax their hold over exclusivity. Kobo already offers the same lending service as Kindle Unlimited in certain countries, without demanding the same extent of loyalty. What we need is to see authors finally tell Amazon, with all their unfair practices, to stick it where the sun don’t shine and go wide–sell with as many retailers as they can.

Amazon has had us by the short and curlies for too long. It’s time to take back our choices. Thank you, Rakuten.

See the article here: https://kobowritinglife.com/2018/01/26/kobo-announces-partnership-with-walmart/ and the original one here: https://techcrunch.com/2018/01/25/walmart-and-rakuten-partner-on-grocery-delivery-in-japan-kobo-e-books-and-audiobooks-in-u-s/

This post is is brought to you by Just Jot it January, and in particular, prompted by the word “address,” provided by John Holton! Thank you so much, John! You can find his JusJoJan post by clicking right here. Please go and say hi! To participate in the prompt, please visit this post, where you’ll find the rules and you can leave your link in the comments.