Kobo store price comparisons

chrisridd · 11-29-2023, 01:36 PM

I wrote a little perl script to help me find which Kobo "country" store gives the cheapest prices for a book. It might be helpful to others.

GitHub gist

To use it, find the book you're interested in on the store, and pass the entire URL to the script. e.g.

Code:

kobocompare https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/alliance-rising-1

and wait a little bit.

I've hardcoded a set of currency conversions to GBP, which obviously could be improved by someone. Equally obviously it could check each store in parallel instead of one at a time. Patches welcome, as they say.

Cootey · 12-01-2023, 07:20 PM

That seems handy, but don’t you require a separate account for each Kobo store? I have one for Japan and another for the US and their accounts and libraries are separate. I’ve held off creating a Canadian account for that reason, though if I buy it cheap from Canada (they have more sales, the bums! Haha), I could always strip the DRM and sideload it into my US Kobo.

I’m curious how you utilize this script.

Aleron Ives · 12-01-2023, 10:49 PM

You can "travel" on the Kobo store by changing your country and using PayPal so you don't have to enter a billing address.

chrisridd · 12-02-2023, 05:00 AM

Kobo's Japan store might be different, but so far I've successfully bought books from India, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, Norway all by:

Removing my payment details from my account
Setting my "billing country" to the desired country
Going to the relevant store
Buying with PayPal, or credits on my account via a gift card

The Kobo apps are all able to download the purchased books.

Or in other words from experience Kobo's DRM just locks you to an account (an email address) and not a billing address/country/store.

JSWolf · 12-02-2023, 05:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisridd

Kobo's Japan store might be different, but so far I've successfully bought books from India, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, Norway all by:

Removing my payment details from my account
Setting my "billing country" to the desired country
Going to the relevant store
Buying with PayPal, or credits on my account via a gift card

The Kobo apps are all able to download the purchased books.

Or in other words from experience Kobo's DRM just locks you to an account (an email address) and not a billing address/country/store.

IMHO, it's best to get your eBooks as ePub which you can remove the DRM (if there is DRM), read as ePub, or convert to KePub to read.

JSWolf · 12-02-2023, 05:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by chrisridd

I wrote a little perl script to help me find which Kobo "country" store gives the cheapest prices for a book. It might be helpful to others.

GitHub gist

To use it, find the book you're interested in on the store, and pass the entire URL to the script. e.g.

Code:

kobocompare https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/alliance-rising-1

and wait a little bit.

I've hardcoded a set of currency conversions to GBP, which obviously could be improved by someone. Equally obviously it could check each store in parallel instead of one at a time. Patches welcome, as they say.

Could you please convert this to Python to run in calibre?

chrisridd · 12-02-2023, 10:39 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Could you please convert this to Python to run in calibre?

I'm not a Python programmer so unfortunately not. It might be a nice project for someone, maybe you could request it in the Calibre forum section?

11-29-2023, 01:36 PM	#1
chrisridd Guru Posts: 946 Karma: 2146660 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: London, UK Device: Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura ONE, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Kobo store price comparisons I wrote a little perl script to help me find which Kobo "country" store gives the cheapest prices for a book. It might be helpful to others. GitHub gist To use it, find the book you're interested in on the store, and pass the entire URL to the script. e.g. Code: kobocompare https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/alliance-rising-1 and wait a little bit. I've hardcoded a set of currency conversions to GBP, which obviously could be improved by someone. Equally obviously it could check each store in parallel instead of one at a time. Patches welcome, as they say.

12-02-2023, 05:00 AM	#4
chrisridd Guru Posts: 946 Karma: 2146660 Join Date: Nov 2011 Location: London, UK Device: Kobo Aura, Kobo Aura ONE, PocketBook InkPad Color 3	Kobo's Japan store might be different, but so far I've successfully bought books from India, Switzerland, Spain, Turkey, Norway all by: Removing my payment details from my account Setting my "billing country" to the desired country Going to the relevant store Buying with PayPal, or credits on my account via a gift card The Kobo apps are all able to download the purchased books. Or in other words from experience Kobo's DRM just locks you to an account (an email address) and not a billing address/country/store. Last edited by chrisridd; 12-02-2023 at 05:01 AM. Reason: formatting

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12-01-2023, 07:20 PM	#2
Cootey Absentminded Reader Posts: 1,199 Karma: 6467283 Join Date: Apr 2017 Device: Kobo Mini, Clara HD, Elipsa; Kindle Paperwhite 3 & 4; iOS eReader apps	That seems handy, but don’t you require a separate account for each Kobo store? I have one for Japan and another for the US and their accounts and libraries are separate. I’ve held off creating a Canadian account for that reason, though if I buy it cheap from Canada (they have more sales, the bums! Haha), I could always strip the DRM and sideload it into my US Kobo. I’m curious how you utilize this script.

12-01-2023, 10:49 PM	#3
Aleron Ives Wizard Posts: 1,159 Karma: 13621998 Join Date: Sep 2022 Device: Kobo Libra 2	You can "travel" on the Kobo store by changing your country and using PayPal so you don't have to enter a billing address.