How To Buy Kobo Books Not Available In My Region?

Question

As a fantasy series fanatic, my favorite authors sometimes get geo-restricted. Any workarounds for blocked e-book sales on Kobo that other readers have tried?

mee · Answer

Regional licensing is such a pain. It seems the best way to buy books from the Kobo store is to use a VPN to change your IP address to a country that Kobo supports. This way you can use your normal payment method. Creating a new account with a fake address from a supported country has worked for me too. If you’re looking for more off-the-beaten-path steamy reads, I recently read ‘Sinful Desires & Fantasies: A steamy Collection’ directly as a free web novel. It’s a set of short, standalone stories focusing on different character dynamics and their secret rendezvous.

Hazel · Answer

To download books not released in your country, first you need to get a VPN (Virtual Private Network) to switch to a country where the e-book is released. After that you need to create a new Kobo account. You need to use an address that is located in the country where the book was released. Paying for your books you should use a payment method that is located in the country where the book was released (for example a local credit card or a local PayPal account).

You might also find a book on Amazon or Google Play Books, since they have slightly different geographical restrictions for e-books. If that doesn’t work, it is worth contacting a publisher to ask if they sell internationally, or checking out independent stores that can sell you e-books from around the world. It’s a bit of a faff, but worth it for really hard to find books. Then, to manage and convert your newly purchased e-books, you can use software like Calibre.

Uma · Answer

There are ways to work around regional restrictions. I use two methods: 1) change your Kobo account to list books for a different country; 2) use a VPN to make your IP address look like it’s coming from somewhere else. In many cases, simply logging in with a different IP address (ie from work/school etc) will make books that weren’t available before become available. You can also search for books directly by their ISBN or title in the Kobo Store – this will take you to the book’s page, bypassing the regional homepage. Alternatively, you can search for the book you want on websites like Book Depository or the website of the book’s publisher. If all else fails, you can try buying a physical copy and having it shipped – but be aware that the shipping costs can end up costing more than the book itself. Be careful to check that whatever workaround you’re using is not contrary to the terms of service of the site, and could get you banned.

Zachary · Answer

I’m a bit of an e-book hoarder, and nothing is more frustrating than regional locks on my Kobo. My typical approach to this problem is to use a VPN to pretend I’m in whatever country the book is available in. Then I make up an address for a new account (I’ve used fictional hotels) and pay with a prepaid card or (less often) through PayPal. Sometimes Kobo will refuse to sell to a new account, but the books are available to purchase with gift cards for that region. I’ve also gotten friends and relatives living in locked countries to buy e-books for me and share them (illegally, where restricted). Many publishers now sell e-books on their own websites – often without DRM. So I try to buy those versions first.

Thomas · Answer

To purchase Kobo books when they are not available in your region use a VPN to connect to the Kobo eBookstore of the country where the book is available. Sign up for a new Kobo Account with a local “address” (for fake ones to work too). Payment may be a problem but you can try to use international credit cards or PayPal. If that doesn’t work, check if the eBook is available elsewhere, or even to buy it as a DRM-free download. Publishers sometimes even sell their books directly on their website. However, be sure to adhere to the terms of use for your Kobo Account.

Meerah Bashir · Answer

This depends on why the book is not available. If it is a rights issue then the audiobook may be available on platforms such as Audible. I have come across instances where the ebook is not available but the audiobook is. You could always purchase the audiobook and then use a text-to-speech or transcription service to try to read it. Alternatively, you could check if the author has a Patreon account or if they offer their work on a service like Ream where they release chapters of their current web novel to subscribers globally for a fee. Many web novel and indie authors are now self-publishing in this way in order to avoid the geographic restrictions put in place by traditional publishing companies. This can sometimes even be better for readers, as they get to read the latest chapters often before they are made available through other channels.

Maya · Answer

This is a (somewhat) different perspective on the matter: regional locks can be temporary. Publishers do rolling releases (not that this necessarily helps much, I know). I add books that are not yet available on my Kobo to my wishlist and check back every few weeks or so. Indeed, I’ve had several books become available after 3-6 months. This can be frustrating, but it has the advantage of preserving workarounds and ensuring that authors and publishers receive the correct payment from the correct region. I enable notifications for wishlist items in the Kobo app, and if a new release appears on my wishlist, patience is the simplest solution of all. In the interim, I read something from my enormous backlog of already-purchased e-books. They’ll still be there when the relevant licenses have expired.

Linda Ellis · Answer

This is a really interesting discussion. I normally use my local library's OverDrive service. If the book is not available, I put in a request for them to purchase a copy. About half of the books I have requested for them to buy have been. Yes, it can take a while but it's free and it adds to the library's collection of books which can be borrowed by everyone. A slower solution but hassle-free and of benefit to the community. Maybe of interest to those who aren't in a hurry.

Toño Velaz · Answer

Contact Kobo support in a polite and considerate manner. It’s worth a shot. Many books are available digitally elsewhere, even if Kobo is not permitted to sell them to customers in a particular region. Errors can occur with the Kobo catalog. Support may manually process a sale in such a case. I recall a few instances where support added a customer to the list of people who could purchase a book even restricted in the customer’s region. Most often, this would be for books available in neighboring regions. Even if support says no, you’re no worse off than you were before. However, it’s rarely worth more than this one simple step to attempt to make a purchase to pay for a book in this manner.

Abigail Phillips · Answer

So instead, I kind of go with the flow and figure that the book being blocked to purchase must mean that the library is trying to tell me to read something else instead. Right now my to-read list is in the thousands, so I tend to just pick the next book that is easily purchaseable by me. By the time I get around to it months later, the licensing for the book has probably come good and I can now borrow it from the library. Alternatively, I find that I’m not as interested in reading the book as I originally thought. That’s a lot of wasted time and money avoiding this friction which would have revealed to me that my desire to read the book was mostly due to impulse in the first place. And of course, there are plenty of other great books waiting to be read.

San San · Answer

It’s also possible that the book is in the public domain in the country where it was written but not where you live. In that case, you may be able to download a free, legal EPUB file from a site like Project Gutenberg in that country and then sideload it. This works particularly well for older classics and older genre fiction. In the last few years I’ve found several 19th-century novels this way that weren’t available to purchase in my country but were free to download in the US. It’s a perfectly legal and easy way to read a certain amount of literature. Just check the copyright status for the country where it was written. These repositories are very careful about what they host.

Theresa Valdez · Answer

Audiobooks on the other hand can have completely different audio rights. So you can search for the title on Audible, on Libro.fm, on Kobo Audiobooks or on Google Play Audiobooks, for example. Often, the audiobook version is even sold globally when the ebook isn’t. If you like to listen to books, then that’s an even better option for you. And yes, you can listen to it on your phone. Some audiobooks even come with a PDF or with a very basic transcript. But that’s not really the same as reading a book. For me it’s even become a completely new way of reading stories, because sometimes I even subscribe to a service just so I can read a geo-blocked ebook as an audiobook.

How To Buy Kobo Books Not Available In My Region?

12 Answers

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