Amazon and Google both launched digital bookstores in Brazil this week. The companies join Kobo in an attempt to get a piece of Brazil’s nascent but quickly growing ebook market. Eighteen percent of Brazilian adults with internet access have bought an ebook, according to Bowker statistics from June.
Google launched books and movies on Google Play Wednesday, and Amazon.com.br — which only sells ebooks for now — opened Thursday. The Brazilian Kindle store, promising “the lowest prices of any ebookstore in Brazil,” has over 1.4 million ebooks, including over 13,000 Portuguese-language books (1,500 of those are free). For now, Brazilians can only read the Kindle books through Android and iOS apps, but Amazon says the Kindle e-reader “will go on sale in Brazil in the coming weeks, with a suggested retail price of R$ 299 [USD $ 143].”
Kobo launched a partnership with Brazilian bookstore chain Livraria Cultura at the end of November. It’s priced at R$ 399 (USD $ 191).
Amazon also announced that Brazilians will be able to self-publish ebooks through a Portuguese-language Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) site.
“There will be now a ‘pre-Amazon’ and a ‘post-Amazon’ period,” and the ‘post’ period will be better,” Fernando Barrachini, president of publisher Novo Conceito, told English-language news site PublishNews Brazil. ”It is a serious and competent company. I am not afraid, I am very enthusiastic about it.”
 |
 |