The ebook publishing site Smashwords is adding Kobo Plus to its options for self-publishing authors. Smashwords already has Kobo as one of its publishing channels. The difference is that regular Kobo lets people buy books individually, while Kobo Plus is a subscription service letting users view as many books as they want.

Smashwords’ emailed notice says:

Recently, Kobo announced it is extending its Kobo Plus service into the UK and the US. Kobo Plus is a subscription service from Rakuten Kobo, connecting readers with a growing selection of ebooks in regions worldwide.
 

By popular demand, we’ll soon add Kobo Plus to our standard Kobo distribution.
 

This will allow all authors to participate in Kobo’s subscription option in addition the single-copy sales at Kobo. Unlike Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited subscription service, a great feature of Kobo Plus is that it does not require exclusivity.
 

As is standard with all new channel introductions such as this, we’re writing you in advance to let you know you have until April 20, 2023 to opt out of this opportunity if you do not wish to participate.
 

After April 20, the only way to opt out of Kobo Plus will be to opt out of all of Kobo. Later this year, when Smashwords author accounts are migrated over to Draft2Digital, authors will gain the ability to treat Kobo (single copy sales) and Kobo Plus (subscriptions) separately.

It isn’t clear how much authors will be paid. The Smashwords dashboard says: “Your royalty share will be based on a formula that takes into account the Minutes Consumed—the combined number of minutes read by paying subscribers in a given month.” This implies that the books will be under DRM. Considering the uncertainty of income and the apparent lack of permanence of the distributed books, I’m dropping Kobo. Kobo’s produced hardly any sales for me, and it would be too ironic to make Files that Last available in an evanescent form.