Kobo rejected 45% of self-published books in 2025, citing AI-generated content as primary cause
By
Ana-Maria Stanciuc
Summary
Rakuten Kobo rejected 45% of titles submitted to its Kobo Writing Life self-publishing platform in 2025, with CEO Michael Tamblyn attributing over 80% of those rejections to low-quality AI-generated books. Hundreds of thousands of submissions were turned away. Tamblyn revealed the figures during a keynote at the CONTEC conference in Buenos Aires in April.
Source
bskyKobo rejected 45% of self-published books in 2025, citing AI-generated content as primary causethenextweb.comKey quotes
· 3 pulledKobo rejected 45% of the titles submitted to Kobo Writing Life, its self-publishing service, in 2025
chief executive Michael Tamblyn attributes more than 80% of those rejections to books he judges to be manifestly AI-generated and of very poor quality
Hundreds of thousands of submissions, on his account, were turned away
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