Say hello to Kobo

MANILA, Philippines - They revolutionized the bookstore concept in the Philippines. And now, the people over at National Book Store are joining the next revolution.

Say hello to Kobo. It’s a cute, award-winning e-book reader with a vast online catalogue — four million titles and growing — that will make it easier for Filipino book lovers to hunt down titles that might have eluded the local market.

Announcing the partnership with the Canadian e-reader company at Raffles’ handsome Writers Bar, NBS purchasing director Xandra Ramos Padilla was quick to point out: “We’re still selling books! We’re still National Book Store!”

As if there was any doubt. Sure, the e-book phenomenon has reached a tipping point, one that publishers and booksellers around the world have been trying to chart and stay ahead of. That’s why NBS marketing director Miguel Ramos began talks with Kobo close to three years ago. And thus a partnership to make all of National’s titles — including local publications from Anvil and others — available in digitized versions was born. Kobo devices are set to hit NBS branches this week, at attractive price points ranging from P4,599 to P9,149.

When the Kobo online experience goes “live” Sept. 20, e-readers will be able to tap into the online bookstore and download titles at a significant (30-percent) discount from hard copies.

Doesn’t this mean National Book Store will be competing with itself?

“It’s good to give customers options,” says Xandra. “Kobo was our choice for an e-solution. We’re still printing and publishing books, but now we can offer them in a new format — as an e-book, which you can take around anywhere in a very handy device. We’re very pleased to offer it to the Filipino market.”

Will it affect their core book sales?

“I do believe a lot of sales will be incremental sales — things you wouldn’t find before at National because only one person wanted it, they’ll be able to get it through Kobo.”

The e-reader may have some evil connotations among rabid Luddites, but the whole National clan, including Xandra, Miguel and champion book booster Nanay Socorro Ramos have always been about giving the customer options: new ways to appreciate the reading experience. Kobo is just one visible sign of that.

Unlike certain other e-book companies, Kobo’s strength is its 100-percent focus on the e-reading experience: they make nothing else.

And according to Todd Humphrey, EVP of business development for Kobo, it will be a cinch to synch your library from Kobo: “It will be easy to purchase books when the store goes live on Sept. 20: you can use any local credit card, no foreign or US account or billing address needed, so you can pay in pesos.” That’s a relief for those who’ve had trouble tracking down obscure titles, or have been blocked from, say, making Amazon.com purchases because they live in the Philippines.

“Philippines has always been on our radar, as a large country with a large reading population,” says Humphrey. “We think of Canada as a huge market, but the Philippines actually has three times our population. So we felt, ‘Whoa, what are we missing down here?’ As you mentioned also, people here love to read.”

Kobo’s people were also impressed with National “When you walk into a National Book Store, it’s exactly the type of bookstore experience we want our brand to be associated with. It was a natural for us. We focus on readers and we’re excited to partner with National because they do as well.”

The Kobo comes in three versions: the Kobo touch (P4,599), with an anti-glare 6” Pearl E Ink touchscreen that offers the closest experience to reading print on paper and is easy on the eyes — even in bright sunlight; the front-lit Kobo Glo eReader (P6,599) offers the most even and adjustable ComfortLight technology to enable people to read anytime — day or night; and the bells-and-whistles model, the Kobo Arc (P9,149) with 7” Android 4.1.1 (Jelly Bean) multimedia viewing experience — books as well as movies, TV shows, music, photos, web pages and more.

The experience of using the small, six-inch reader is much different from lugging around a tablet that doubles as your e-reader. With its notched rubber case, it’s tactile and paperback-sized — and light (185 grams). You can read it without the onscreen light, which makes it more restful for the eyes, though the on-screen ComfortLight, as Humphrey says, “is a marriage saver” — as anyone addicted to reading while their partner is snoring away well knows. The battery boasts 70 hours of continuous life with light on. It’s got some extras, too, like Chess, Sudoku, a web browser and a drawing tablet.

For the time being, Xandra says there is one thing the Kobo will never be able to replace: real live book signings by real live authors, something that National specializes in. “The book signing experience hasn’t crossed over to Kobo yet!” she notes.

“But it could!” chimes in Humphrey.

The Luddites may already be rolling in their low-tech graves.

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Visit wwww.kobo.com to browse their online catalogue and set up your local Kobo.