How to Transfer Sony eBooks to Kobo

Because of the poor marketing performance in 2013, Sony decides to abandon the North America (including US and Canada) e-reading market, the official press indicates Kobo will take over all the North American customers from Sony.

According to Kobo's declaration, in March 2014 all the US and Canada Sony eReader users will have the authority to transfer most of their purchased Sony eBooks to Kobo library, and in May, they will be able to directly buy eBooks from Kobo store via Sony PRS eReader devices, but PRS-900/950 are not included.

Similar cases

This is not happened the first time, there are several similar cases in recent years.

In November 2011, the fictionwise websites (Fictionwise.com, eReader.com and eBookwise.com) decided to hand over their customers to Barnes&Noble.

Also in the end of 2011, Amazon announced the Mobipocket.com would stop serving.

Back to the middle of 2011, Microsoft retired MS Reader, all the users have to use ConvertLit software to strip the DRM to keep their purchased LIT eBooks.

The consequence of closing an eBook store

Closing an eBook store is not like closing a cloth store, which you just cannot buy clothes there anymore. If an eBook store is closed, in most cases your purchased eBooks would be in vain if you don't take actions (transfer to specific stores or back up safely).

Because almost all the purchased eBooks are protected by DRM, when the eBook store is closed, they also shut the content server, which will make your purchased eBooks unable to be read anymore.

Directly reading Sony books on Kobo

Technically speaking, you can directly read Sony books on Kobo eReader as they are all using the Adobe Adept DRM, the books shall be shared each other via Adobe Digital Editions, but once your Sony eBook files are lost, you will be no longer able to get them again after Sony completely quiting US and Canada. Further more, the Adobe account, Sony account, and Kobo account would make your head mess up when you want to directly read Sony books on Kobo. Therefore, this is not a recommended way. If you want to try it, here is a related guide.

Transfer Sony books to Kobo via official channel

As has been mentioned above, in March 2014, all the US and Canada Sony eBook Store customers will receive a notification email which contains a personalized link, with this unique link they can transfer most of their purchase Sony books to Kobo account.

But there are also drawbacks of this method.

1. Not all your purchased Sony book would be able to be transferred to Kobo library, which means, even by official channel some of your eBooks will also turn unaccessible.
2. Sony eBook Store magazine subscription is confirmed will turn invalid in Kobo store.
3. Sony PRS-900/950 users will face an embarrassing situation, their devices would be only able to read DRM-free EPUB books. Because these two models are not contaned in Kobo's plan.

The most recommended way to protect your purchased Sony books

To compeletely back up your Sony books safely, the most recommended way is strip the DRM. And below is the advantages.

1. By removing DRM, all of your purchased Sony eBooks will be able to read on Kobo. In fact, besides Kobo, you can read them on any device supporting EPUB format. You can even convert them to Mobi format and read on Kindle.
2. You need not to deal with those different accounts, the DRM-free eBooks are not involving with any account.
3. The DRM-free books are 100% totally owned by you, you can read and keep it permanently no matter the source store is still running or not.

We've compiled a super detailed guide about how to remove DRM from Sony books. So there is no necessity to write duplicate stuff in this post.

If you already have the knowledge about removing DRM, here is the recommended software, Epubor Adobe EPUB&PDF DRM Removal can be the most easy to use eBook DRM removing program you will ever meet.

   

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