Goodbye Kobo?

ADDED 2nd November: I have received a thoughtful and informative reply from Kobo, addressing my concerns quite satisfactorily. I thank them. At this stage, kobo remains in my list of sales venues.

It is with regret that I must inform you all that I may soon be removing all my content from the Kobo platform, and removing my support for their products and service, due to changes to the service agreement they are trying to force authors to agree to by refusing them even access to their accounts to modify profiles, close accounts, view sales data etc, until they agree to a raft of new modifications to the terms, some of which are deeply concerning, as much so as this tactic, which I have no doubt will net a large number of less thorough people who simply click the agree button to gain access.

I have contacted kobo requesting that access without agreeing to the terms, while I consider my position, and depending on the response, may or may not be soon removing all content from their service. Among the most concerning terms, is a gagging item, which effectively stops any author from having access to advice from other authors relating to the terms, advice we all rely on when considering adding any new services to our publishing portfolio. There are vaguenesses in the agreement which i find concerning, and other items less vague and equally worrying. While I hope this is an innocent matter, the fact I must agree with such things to simply view my own account is unacceptable and unforgivably poor business practice.

I apologise to my fans who rely on the kobo service for any inconvenience this may cause, however as the sales on that service are frankly too low to warrant continued support anyway, this matter is more a final nail in the coffin than anything else. Therefore, given the service has taken such a move as this, unless I receive correspondence sufficient to satisfy my concerns, I will have to simply cut my losses and abandon the platform. In that instance, all links for kobo related sites, products and services will be removed from this website in the near future.

I thank you all for understanding.