Latvian Spotify for books Fabula launches in Finland with 11 publishers

    Following goals set at their recent funding round, e-book streaming service Fabula launches in Finland, with more countries to follow.

    Latvian team of book geeks, incorporated in Finland after Startup Sauna batch of 2013, just launched their service here. We discussed their commitment to electronic readers earlier. Since 2012 Fabula (formerly known as Fastr) has seen ups and downs, received top awards and made a pivot from speed reading to ebook streaming.

    Many startups have died trying to compete with Amazon and offering books in English. Learning from them, Fabula is working their way up where Amazon is still lagging: books in national languages by local publishers.

    The app now hosts more than 12,000 books in 7 languages, including 300 Finnish titles ranging from Kerjäläinen ja jänis by Tuomas Kyrö to Odininlapsi by Siri Pettersen, sourced from 11 local publishers. The service is available for Android, iPhone and iPad.

    We see high growth potential in Finland. It is also our home – Fabula started 2 years ago in Startup Sauna, most of our investment comes from Finland, we also have our company and employees here.

    First 100 Finnish subscribers got a special deal of up to 70% off the regular price. We confirmed the demand just before publishing, and it is overwhelming. 86 readers already used the opportunity and 2 out of 3 offers are sold out:

    1 month (50% off) for 7.49 EUR 14.99 EUR14 subscriptions left
    3 months (60% off) for 17.99 EUR 44.97 EUR – sold out

    6 months (70% off) for 26.98 EUR 89.94 EUR – sold out

    You can still become one of the first 100 here .

    Meanwhile, Fabula is already plotting their next move:

    We will go to countries, where e-book and audio book subscription service solves a real content accessibility problem for the readers and growth problem for industry’s publishers and authors.

    Fabula is eyeing places with good reader activity in national languages, whose local literature has been largely ignored by the big players. The team says they will keep their focus on Amazon-free countries in Europe, and definitely not enter the US in the foresseable future.