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Watch out, Amazon: The Kobo eReader now has a Goodreads rival

21 d ago

StoryGraph, a book-tracking platform, has integrated with Rakuten’s Kobo e-reader, allowing users to automatically sync their reading progress. The integration, announced in May and now live for all Kobo account-based content, makes Kobo the first e-reader to connect with StoryGraph’s community platform, challenging Amazon’s Kindle-Goodreads dominance. Traditionally, Amazon has retained readers by combining low prices with Goodreads’ social network, but competitors lacked e-reader integration. This new feature automatically marks books as “Read” on StoryGraph when finished on a Kobo device or app, working with both e-books and audiobooks. StoryGraph, founded in 2019 by Black British engineer Nadia Odunayo and CTO Rob Frelow as a side project without outside funding, now has over 5 million readers. It offers detailed analytics on reading moods, pace, and habits, along with an online community for challenges and book clubs. The Kobo integration puts the app in front of 12 million users across 190 countries. The move capitalizes on the cultural revival of reading driven by #BookTok and apps. According to Pew Research, 31% of U.S. adults read an e-book in the past year, up from 17% in 2011. Competitors like Everand recently bought Fable for similar integration without hardware. The StoryGraph-Kobo integration is free, though StoryGraph offers a $5-per-month Plus subscription for deeper stats and custom charts.