Readwise Books is a new ebook store from a company known for highlighting and read-later tools. Whether it suits you depends on how much you value its note-taking features and on details such as pricing and file formats, which are still unclear.
What is Readwise Books?
The Verge reports that Readwise Books is a full ebook offering from Readwise, the company behind a set of tools for heavy readers. Readwise is moving beyond helping people manage their reading and is now selling the books as well. That puts it in direct competition with Amazon’s Kindle store and Rakuten’s Kobo store, which have long been the default places to buy ebooks for many readers. Beyond what The Verge describes, the published details are thin. For practical purposes, think of Readwise Books as an extra place to buy and read books, built by a company whose main focus has been what readers do with a text after they have read it: highlighting, reviewing and remembering it.
How does it fit with Readwise and Readwise Reader?
Readwise now has three products. The first, also called Readwise, gathers the highlights you make in ebooks, starting with Kindle, and organises them so you can review them later and remember what you read. The second, Readwise Reader, is an app for content saved to read later, such as email newsletters, PDFs and web articles. Readwise Books adds the books themselves. The likely appeal is that buying, reading, highlighting and reviewing can all happen inside one company’s system, without exporting highlights from another store. Exactly how closely the three products connect at launch has not been fully set out, so check that before relying on it.
Who is this service aimed at?
The Verge describes Readwise’s tools as built for power readers. In practice, that means people who read a great deal, highlight heavily, take notes, and want to go back to that material later. Students, researchers, writers and people who read non-fiction for work are the obvious examples. If you read novels for pleasure and rarely highlight anything, Readwise’s main strengths may matter little to you. In that case the deciding factors are more likely to be price, range of titles and device support, where the established stores have had years to build up. If highlights and notes are central to how you read, the new store deserves a closer look.
How does it differ from the Kindle and Kobo stores?
The Kindle and Kobo stores are each tied to their own e-ink readers and apps. Both have large catalogues and long-standing relationships with publishers. Highlights are supported in both, but getting them out to use elsewhere can take extra steps, which is the gap Readwise’s original product was built to fill. Readwise Books seems to start from the opposite end: annotation and review come first, and the store is built around them. It is not yet clear how its catalogue size, prices, and support for dedicated reading devices compare with Amazon and Rakuten. Those are the practical points most readers will weigh when choosing where to buy.
What do we not yet know?
Several important details are not covered in the material available here. These include:
- How many titles the store offers, and which publishers are involved
- Whether prices match those on Kindle and Kobo
- Whether purchased books come with digital rights management (DRM), and what kind
- Whether books can be downloaded as standard files, such as EPUB
- Which apps and e-ink devices can open purchased books
- Which countries the store is available in
Each point affects whether your books will stay usable in the long run. Check Readwise’s own documentation for these answers before buying, instead of assuming they match how Amazon or Rakuten work.
Can you keep using Kindle or Kobo alongside it?
Nothing in the reporting suggests that you have to choose only one store. Many readers already buy from more than one shop, and Readwise’s original product was built to pull in highlights from other platforms, Kindle included. If you use the Readwise highlight service now, you can probably keep it running for books bought elsewhere while you try the new store. Splitting a library across stores does have costs, though. Your books end up in several apps, and a title bought in one store usually cannot be opened in another store’s app. Using more than one store is a reasonable approach, but it works best if you decide deliberately where each type of book will come from.
What happens to books you already own?
Ebooks bought from the Kindle store usually stay inside Amazon’s system, and many Kobo purchases are also limited by DRM. A new store does not change those restrictions, so your existing library is not likely to move across to Readwise Books. In most cases, switching only affects what you buy from now on. DRM-free files you already have are a different case. Readwise Reader already accepts uploaded documents, but whether purchased books and uploaded files will sit together in one library has not been confirmed. If you have years of purchases with one retailer, it may make more sense to buy new titles in the new store than to try to move everything over.
Which devices can you read on?
This is one of the biggest open questions. Kindle and Kobo books are designed for their makers’ own e-ink readers, which many people prefer for long reading sessions because the screens are easier on the eyes. Readwise’s existing apps run on phones, tablets and computers, but the available reporting does not say whether books from the new store can be sent to or read on dedicated e-ink devices. If you read mostly on an e-ink device, check this before you buy anything. If you are happy reading on a tablet or phone, it matters much less.
How should you decide whether to switch?
Start with how you actually read. Look back over the past few months: how many books did you highlight, and did you ever go back to those highlights? If the answer is often, a store built around annotation may suit you. Then compare what matters in practice. Check whether the books you want are available, whether the prices are close, whether the files will open on your device, and whether you can keep a usable copy if the service changes. Finally, think about lock-in. Each store you add makes your library more scattered, and smaller services carry more uncertainty about the future than long-established ones. Weigh the features against those risks before moving a large share of your spending.
What should you check before your first purchase?
Before buying, read the store’s terms on ownership and downloads, and check whether the book you want is sold DRM-free. Try one inexpensive title first. Open it on every device you normally use, make a few highlights, and see where they appear in Readwise and Reader. Test whether you can export your notes in a format you can use elsewhere. Also check whether you can still get your purchases if you cancel any related subscription, because some services handle this differently. Once you have checked these points, you will know from your own use, not from launch coverage, whether Readwise Books should become your main bookshop or stay an occasional extra.
Sources and further reading
- The Verge: reporting on the launch of Readwise Books and the company’s existing products
- Readwise: official product pages and help documentation for Readwise, Reader and Books
- Amazon: Kindle store terms of use and device support information
- Rakuten Kobo: store policies on ebook formats and DRM
Surfaced from the rss:verge signal “new ebook store launch”. AI-assisted draft, editorially reviewed.
