StoryGraph and Kobo Integrate, Challenging Amazon's Dominance in Digital Book Tracking

Another challenger to the Amazon Kindle-Goodreads book-tracking empire has emerged.

On Monday, the reading tracker StoryGraph teamed up with Rakuten’s Kobo, the maker of a more open e-reader (and Kindle alternative), allowing book lovers to automatically track their reading habits.

The integration was first announced in May and is now live for all Kobo account-based content.

This makes the Kobo the first e-reader to integrate with StoryGraph’s book community platform and serves as another way to chip away at Amazon’s dominance in the digital books market. Traditionally, Amazon has managed to retain its readers by offering low prices on books and e-books and combining that with a robust online reading community and social network, Goodreads.

While many Goodreads competitors emerged over the years, few have been able to establish a solid footprint because they lacked the ability to integrate with customers’ e-reading devices, as Goodreads does with Kindle devices.

The StoryGraph-Kobo integration changes that, as it will now automatically sync a user’s reading progress with their StoryGraph account. That means when you finish a book on your Kobo eReader, it will automatically be marked as “Read” on StoryGraph, keeping your reading stats up-to-date. The feature will work with both e-books and audiobooks, the companies said, and it works with any Kobo device and Kobo’s apps.

Book trackers like StoryGraph are popular because they offer an easy way for people to keep a record of their reading history and favorite books, and offer ways to discover recommendations based on what others are reading. As StoryGraph’s name implies, its analytics tend to go deeper, offering readers detailed charts about their reading moods, pace, and more, to improve reading habits.

It also offers an online community where you can participate in reading challenges and join book clubs, while staying motivated to read by earning “streaks.” (Typically, we don’t like addictive gamification measures in social apps, but for encouraging reading, we’ll make an exception.)

Founded by Black British engineer Nadia Odunayo and CTO Rob Frelow in 2019, StoryGraph began as a side project and didn’t take in outside funding. It has since evolved into a community of over 5 million readers. The Kobo integration will now put the app in front of the e-reader maker’s 12 million users in 190 countries.

Kobo and StoryGraph aren’t alone in capitalizing on the cultural revival of reading, driven by online communities like #booktok and reading apps. According to Pew Research, around three in 10 U.S. adults (31%) reported reading an e-book in the past year, up from 17% in 2011.

The startup Everand, which offers a marketplace for e-books and audiobooks, also recently bought the digital book community app maker Fable to offer a similar integration — without the hardware. (Perhaps Kobo could be eyeing StoryGraph for its own M&A in the future?)

The new Kobo-StoryGraph integration doesn’t require a subscription, though the StoryGraph app does offer a $5 per month Plus subscription that adds deeper stats, filters, custom charts, and comparison tools.