April 30, 2015

Tokyo, April 30, 2015- Rakuten Kobo Inc., a subsidiary of Rakuten, Inc., today officially launched it's free self e-publishing service, Rakuten Kobo Writing Life, in Japan.

Rakuten Kobo Writing Life allows individuals, as well as publishing companies, to sell their eBooks through the service on the Rakuten Kobo eBook Store. After registering on the service, users can upload EPUB3-format eBook data to the eBook creation webpage and enter the retail price and information about the content. Once the content has been screened and approved, users can sell their content through the store. When eBooks are sold through the store, users receive royalties in accordance with the retail price of the work.

The royalty rate is either 45% or 70% depending on the retail price of the eBook*1, allowing users to easily calculate their royalty figures. Users can also flexibly set the price of their eBooks, making it possible for those that are less concerned about royalties and more interested in having their work read by as many people as possible to offer their books for free (0 yen), or those that wish to hold a special limited-time promotion price to set the price as they wish.

Through the service's Dashboard, users can monitor data on the sales trends of their eBooks sold through the store, including accumulative sales figures, sales during certain periods and royalty sums*2.

Kobo has been offering Kobo Writing Life service in over 160 countries in approximately 80 languages, with as many as 40,000 registered users. In Japan, a beta version of the service has been operating since December 2014, and the service has now been officially launched, with a new function added in response to user requests which allows users to set the date their books go on sale in advance.

In Japan, Kobo will continue to provide new services aimed at meeting the diverse reading and publishing needs of users.

*1 Royalties for public domain content are set at 20% of the total transaction.
*2 For free e-books, only the accumulated download figures are displayed.

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