For the previous decade, three firms have been constructing full-fledged e book ecosystems with units, apps and digital bookstores all working completely collectively — Amazon, Rakuten and a tiny firm referred to as Vivlio.

Whereas Amazon’s Kindle is the clear chief and Rakuten’s Kobo the plain challenger, Vivlio has been constructing an open European various to those two tech giants. And it proves you can compete with tech giants with a workforce of 35 so long as you’ve a definite technique with totally different targets.

Vivlio was integrated in 2011, only a yr after Kobo launched its first e book reader. At first, Vivlio was a facet mission from Decitre, a bookstore chain from the Lyon space. Similar to Barnes & Noble within the U.S., Decitre needed to start out promoting ebooks in order that it will tackle all of your studying wants.

However Vivlio selected a unique path because it instantly determined that it needed to construct a bookstore-agnostic e book platform. Cultura, one of many largest booksellers in France, turned a shareholder.

“The concept was to create a European coalition — nicely, French at first, however we’re making an attempt to make it European now — a coalition of firms with comparable pursuits, booksellers and retailers of cultural items, round a French after which European answer,” Vivlio CEO David Dupré advised me.

Turning bookshops into e book sellers

Bookshops existed lengthy earlier than the inception of Amazon. However Amazon didn’t accomplice with current bookstores to ship books to your own home. Whereas Amazon has managed to seize a big market share of e-book gross sales, bookshops nonetheless exist.

In some international locations, together with many European international locations, fastened e-book costs have even helped impartial bookstores stay in enterprise. That’s why the e-book trade remains to be a extremely fragmented trade in Europe with massive e-commerce retailers, huge chain bookstores and impartial retailers.

From the very starting, Vivlio guess that the e-book trade would stay fragmented — constructing yet-another-Amazon wouldn’t be a profitable transfer. Vivlio signed a handful of partnerships with small and massive chain bookstores in order that it might run their e book shops for them.

Picture Credit: Romain Dillet

In France, along with Decitre and Cultura, Vivlio has additionally partnered with Decitre’s sister firm Furet du Nord and Leclerc. Vivlio can be working with the main chain bookstores in Belgium and Spain, Standaard Boekhandel/Membership and Casa del Libro respectively. So if you happen to’ve purchased an e-book on a type of web sites, Vivlio dealt with that transaction on behalf of these retailers.

“The elemental precept of the Vivlio mannequin, which actually units us other than Kobo, for instance, which has a partnership with Fnac, is that we assure two issues to our companions. First, the client stays their buyer. Which means that the client account is a bookseller’s buyer account, not a Vivlio buyer account,” Dupré stated.

“Second, a really massive portion of the gross sales generated by the Vivlio ecosystem go to the bookseller. In different phrases, we depart many of the margin to the reseller . . . That’s the contractual, authorized and operational promise,” he added.

Person-friendly ebooks

Whereas Vivlio solely takes a small reduce on every e book sale, it nonetheless represents the vast majority of the corporate’s income. However promoting ebooks is one factor. You must present methods to learn these ebooks after that.

The French firm rapidly understood that it wanted to promote its personal e book readers in order that patrons might obtain and browse their books on a devoted gadget. As soon as once more, as a substitute of designing an e book reader from scratch, Vivlio partnered with an current producer, PocketBook — extra on that later.

Promoting ebooks has additionally represented a technical problem for the corporate. The dominant file format for ebooks is named epub — even latest Kindle units now help epub books. So naturally Vivlio is promoting epub information.

However e-book publishers usually require a safety technique (a DRM) to guarantee that ebooks don’t find yourself on the web just some days after the official launch. Whereas Amazon, Rakuten, Apple and Google have all designed their very own DRM layer, most third-party e book sellers depend on Adobe’s DRM system.

However Adobe’s DRM hasn’t advanced in years. It’s clunky, hostile to the top consumer and Adobe takes a reduce on every transaction. “The corporate actually virtually died due to [Adobe’s DRM] as we have been having main issues. It accounted for 80% of our buyer help requests,” Dupré stated.

Vivlio contributed to Readium LCP, an open-source DRM answer that doesn’t require an Adobe account (or any third-party account). Many firms and public establishments have embraced LCP lately. Adobe’s DRM remains to be the main safety system, however this technical transfer contributes to the open ecosystem philosophy behind Vivlio.

Including e book readers to the ecosystem

Vivlio companions with PocketBook for its e book readers. However these units aren’t simply rebranded PocketBook units as the corporate provides a software program layer in order that they work with your complete Vivlio ecosystem. For example, you may log in to your bookstore account instantly in your Vivlio e-reader. All of your purchases are mechanically synchronized along with your gadget and Vivlio’s cloud storage.

Vivlio at present has three e book readers in its product lineup. There’s the entry-level Vivlio Gentle e-reader with a 6-inch show and a color-adjustable frontlight. There’s the improved model of that reader, the Vivlio Gentle HD. And there’s a much bigger e-reader referred to as the Vivlio InkPad 4. This one has a 7.8-inch show.

I’ve been testing the Vivlio Gentle HD for the previous few weeks, and it’s precisely what you’ll anticipate from an e-reader in 2023. With a 300dpi display, the textual content is sharp and extremely readable. The battery lasts a number of weeks, even whenever you use the frontlight. There’s a USB-C port for charging, built-in Wi-Fi connectivity and a ton of customization choices for the interface, gestures and typography.

Picture Credit: Romain Dillet /

It’s additionally value noting that there are tiny bodily buttons on the backside of the gadget — bodily buttons are unusual with e-readers these day. General, it’s a small studying gadget you can carry with you in all places you go.

There are different options, akin to an online browser, a calendar and a few easy video games like solitaire. However within the smartphone period, e-readers are good for one factor — studying. For those who’re an intense reader and don’t need to carry a pile of books with you in your subsequent trip, this gadget works extraordinarily nicely.

A impartial participant

Vivlio positions itself as a impartial participant within the e book trade. Whereas Cultura is now the primary shareholder, it nonetheless has a handful of minority shareholders from the trade. For example, Divibib is a latest addition on Vivlio’s capitalization desk.

Divibib isn’t a bookstore, it’s an organization that works tightly with public libraries in Germany. As you’ll have guessed, you should utilize a Vivlio e-reader to borrow books from German libraries. As soon as once more, that’s as a result of digital lending is one other type of e book studying.

“The corporate isn’t going to be built-in into a gaggle. The concept is to create an alliance of European companions. The capital can be structured on this method. It’s not open to everybody, however when now we have main companions, there could also be discussions so as to add them as shareholders,” Dupré stated.

Vivlio is nicely conscious that it’s by no means going to be as huge as Amazon or Rakuten. However the firm estimates that it has lots of of 1000’s of lively customers. It’s not an enormous quantity, however there are solely 35 folks working for the corporate.

Extra importantly, there’s plenty of room for progress. As folks begin ebooks as a method to complement their studying habits, Vivlio supplies a number of entry factors into its ecosystem. It’s an fascinating enterprise case that illustrates differentiated positioning.

Picture Credit: Romain Dillet