From the Ontario Book Publishers Organization (OBPO) today comes a bit of interesting news about a ten-day e-book promo that kicks off today on Kobo’s Canadian site, Kobo.ca, which apparently involves an opportunity to win either a Kobo Arc or a Kobo Mini. (More on that later in the post.)

Dubbed the 1001 Canadian Nights Promotion, the scheme involves “almost 360 titles across eight different categories” from 16 different OBPA members, “including small independent presses, children’s publishers, specialty publishers of poetry and plays, academic presses and general publishers,” according to a release. (A full 125 of those titles are Young Adult books, while 45 are biographies or memoirs, and 42 are classified as independent fiction.)

As far as we can tell, the promotion (which runs from January 24 to February 3) seems to be little more than a PR campaign. But then again, there’s certainly nothing wrong with discovering new literary and journalistic voices. And as the OBPO release explains, the featured titles will include books authored by “Canadian writers both well-known and waiting-to-be-discovered.”

Kobo Arc Android TabletAs for whether or not any of the featured titles are going to be discounted doing the week-and-a-half long promo … we can’t quite say quite. Unfortunately, that detail was left out of the press release, and Web page listing the full promo details doesn’t seem to be active just yet. You can try it yourself by heading over to kobobooks.com/canadiannights.

Also according to the release, “another feature of the promotion is the opportunity to win either a Kobo Arc or a Kobo Mini.” But since the details of that contest are also located on the Web page we weren’t able to access, we obviously can’t fill you in. We have a call out to the director of the Ontario Book Publishers Organization, asking for clarity; we’ll update this post once we learn more.


Update: I just got off the phone with Marg Anne Morrison of the Ontario Book Publishers Association, and she told me that many of the books included in the promotion are indeed discounted, but that there doesn’t necessarily seem to be any particular rhyme or reason as to what’s discounted, or why. “There does seem to be a range,” she said, “from no discount to about 40 percent.”

And as for the mysterious Web page I can’t seem to access (where you can also find information about the Kobo Mini and Kobo Arc giveaway contest), Morrison says it’s up and running. Can someone else located in the U.S. please try the link, and let me know what you see? It’s www.kobobooks.com/canadiannights.

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