Kobo Writing Life or BooksOasis for Indie Ebooks

Our Take

Kobo Writing Life is free, pays 70% on most ebooks and puts your book in an international store with loyal readers and a subscription service. BooksOasis is a smaller independent bookstore that charges a flat plan and pays the whole ebook price, and it sells paperbacks and hardcovers on the same page. Kobo is one of the first stores to join when you go wide. BooksOasis is a strong addition, especially for readers you send there yourself. Neither asks for exclusivity, so you can list on both.

The Two Platforms in Brief

Kobo Writing Life is Kobo's free self-publishing portal. You upload an ebook, set prices for each country and publish to Kobo's store, which serves readers through its e-readers, apps and partner retailers in many countries. Kobo also runs Kobo Plus, a subscription where readers pay monthly to read from a catalog, and authors earn based on reading time.

BooksOasis is an online bookstore for independent authors and small presses. Authors pay a flat plan, monthly or yearly, to list their books, with no commission on sales. Each book can have ebook, paperback and hardcover editions, readers buy each title outright, and ebooks are read in the store's app.

Feature Chart

Royalties and the 20% Rule

Kobo's royalty is generous in one important way: there is no upper price limit on its 70% rate. Any ebook priced at $2.99 or more qualifies, as long as it meets one condition. The ebook must be priced at least 20% below every print edition of the same book. If it is not, the rate drops to 45%. Ebooks below $2.99 also earn 45%.

That rule catches authors who price their ebook close to the paperback. A $9.99 ebook with a $10.99 paperback, for example, misses the threshold and earns 45%. Pricing the ebook at $8.79 or below, or raising the paperback, restores the 70% rate.

On BooksOasis, there is no tier to qualify for. The ebook pays 100% of whatever price you set, whatever your print price. The trade-off is the plan fee, which you pay whether or not books sell.

Kobo Plus and Subscription Reading

Kobo Plus works differently from Kindle Unlimited in one key respect: it is not exclusive. You can enroll an ebook in Kobo Plus and still sell it everywhere else, including BooksOasis. Readers on the subscription read as much as they like, and authors share in a pool based on reading time.

For authors of long series, Kobo Plus can add meaningful income from readers who would not buy each book individually. It is worth opting in for most fiction.

BooksOasis does not run a subscription. Every reader buys the book, which means no page-read pool, but also no earnings diluted by binge readers who pay a flat monthly fee.

Who Shops Where

Kobo has a large international audience and is especially strong in some markets outside the US, where it competes closely with Amazon. Its readers are used to buying from independent authors, and Kobo's merchandising team actively features indie books. For wide authors, Kobo often becomes the second-largest ebook store after Amazon.

BooksOasis is a newer store with a smaller audience. Readers browse genre shelves, series pages, new releases and books on sale, and because the catalog is focused on independent authors and small presses, a new book is less likely to disappear among big-publisher titles. Its biggest advantage is for readers you bring yourself: a newsletter link or a link in your back matter sends them to a store where each sale pays the full price.

Promotions

Kobo Writing Life has a Promotions tab where authors can apply for placements in Kobo's own deals and featured lists. These placements are selective but can produce strong results, and they cost little or nothing beyond the discount you offer. Kobo also lets you schedule price changes by country.

On BooksOasis, you set a promotional price per format with a start and end date. While it runs, the regular price shows crossed out, and the book can appear in the store's sale banners. There is no application process, so you decide when each promotion happens.

Print and Other Formats

Kobo Writing Life is built around ebooks, and it also supports audiobooks. Most authors handle their print editions elsewhere.

BooksOasis lets you sell ebook, paperback and hardcover editions from one book page. Print editions pay the price minus the printing cost and a handling fee of 30% of that printing cost, and readers pay shipping. Five common trims are available, the dashboard checks print files automatically, and an ISBN is optional. That makes it a convenient single home for every format of a book, alongside Kobo for ebooks.

Country Pricing

Kobo lets you set a separate price for each country or currency, so you can price at a round local figure in Canadian dollars, euros or pounds rather than relying on automatic conversion. That matters for the 20% rule too, because the comparison with your print price is made per market. Authors who sell well in a particular country often fine-tune that country's price.

BooksOasis uses one price per format. That keeps setup quick, but you have less room to tailor prices to local markets. For authors whose readers are mostly in one country, this rarely matters.

Payments and Reporting

Kobo pays within 45 days of the end of each month, and its dashboard shows sales by country and by store, including Kobo Plus reading time. Because Kobo sells through partner retailers in some regions, the reports also show where your readers came from.

BooksOasis records each sale in an earnings ledger as it happens, so you can see which edition sold and when. You add bank transfer or PayPal details any time before your first payout. If your plan lapses, books keep selling and the earnings are held until you renew.

Getting Your Files Ready

Both stores accept an EPUB for ebooks, so one well-formatted file can serve both. Kobo also accepts Word documents and converts them, though a clean EPUB you have checked yourself usually looks better. For BooksOasis print editions, you need a print-ready PDF interior and a full cover sized to your trim and page count. Check your EPUB on a phone and an e-reader before uploading, since a layout problem shows up on every store that uses the file.

Running Both

1. Publish your ebook on Kobo Writing Life and opt into Kobo Plus if you write fiction or series.
2. Price your ebook at least 20% below your print editions to qualify for Kobo's 70% royalty.
3. List the same book on BooksOasis with its ebook, paperback and hardcover editions.
4. Apply for Kobo promotions and schedule your own BooksOasis sales around launches.
5. Send your newsletter readers to BooksOasis, where each sale pays the full price.

For a closer look at Kobo against Amazon, see our comparison of Kobo Writing Life and KDP.

Which Suits You

Frequently Asked Questions