The Global eBook Report: Current Conditions & Future Projections. Update October 2013 by Rüdiger Wischenbart
Authors: Rüdiger Wischenbart
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publishers tend to follow the wholesale model, with the exception of Apple, which is technically selling Portuguese books from abroad, making it easier to use the agency model. When negotiating with Amazon, the big publishers were able to include a discount limitation on the contracts, creating consumer price control in a wholesale deal.
Because books are not technically tax-free yet, big Brazilian publishers are avoiding exporting to them. That is why a great part of the Brazilian ebooks available at the Amazon local store, for instance, is not available for American and European customers. Exports will require significant additional tax control and paperwork, so the publishers have declined to take further risks for the small revenues that they can expect.
eGovernment
If tax issues were not a good enough reason for digital publishing and bookselling executives to visit Brazil regularly, the power of federal government book purchasing is.
As we saw above, the public sector generated over 26.4% of publishers’ revenue in 2012, and the truth is that the ebook revolution will only get major traction in Brazil when the government decides to go digital. However, that may happen faster and more easily than many may anticipate.
First, one must remember that the Brazilian government is strongly emphasizing its digital agenda. Elections are digitally controlled nationwide, and winners are announced a few hours after any ballot. The Brazilian Internal Revenue Service has been receiving income tax declarations electronically for years. The inflationary 1980s and 1990s forced not only the banks but the whole financial system to develop online services long before the Internet was a reality, and that included the government. That being said, the Brazilian government will undoubtedly embrace ebooks as soon as the savings to be expected from such an innovative move are clear.
Actually, digitized government book purchasing in Brazil has already begun. In November 2011, the federal government included digital content in the 2014 edition of its Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), which acquires all educational books used in public schools. Initially, the plan only proposed buying DVDs. However, for the 2015 edition, the government asked specifically for ebooks, and educational publishers are delivering digital content for evaluation in the second half of 2013. Since the PNLD alone purchased U.S. $537 million worth of books in 2012 (again, more than 22% of publishers’ revenues), the potential here is great.
However, the PNLD is not the only potential bulk purchaser. In 2012, the Ministry of Education bought 600,000 tablets for public schoolteachers. In the beginning, no attention was given to the content that such devices would carry, and the tables have not been distributed yet. More recently, the federal government started a bidding process to choose the reading platform to be used in these devices. Amazon and Saraiva are already approved, but the process has not ended yet. It is hoped that the tables will reach the teachers’ hands before they become obsolete.
Another area of Brazilian government participation in digital publishing that cannot be neglected is the purchase of academic content, either via licensing or ebooks. These purchases are made by CAPES , a federal organization linked to the Ministry of Education that supports nationwide graduate courses and initiatives. The CAPES Periodicals Portal offers Brazilian graduate students free access to about 31,000 journals and 150,000 ebooks. In 2011 alone, for instance, CAPES spent US $71 million on digital periodical licenses and ebooks for its library. No wonder Wiley has just opened an office in Brazil, and Springer is also moving in that direction. Brasilia is definitely becoming an important city in the digital publishing geography.
Distributors and aggregators
While the digital retail front in Brazil is dominated by global actors, the distribution and
Because books are not technically tax-free yet, big Brazilian publishers are avoiding exporting to them. That is why a great part of the Brazilian ebooks available at the Amazon local store, for instance, is not available for American and European customers. Exports will require significant additional tax control and paperwork, so the publishers have declined to take further risks for the small revenues that they can expect.
eGovernment
If tax issues were not a good enough reason for digital publishing and bookselling executives to visit Brazil regularly, the power of federal government book purchasing is.
As we saw above, the public sector generated over 26.4% of publishers’ revenue in 2012, and the truth is that the ebook revolution will only get major traction in Brazil when the government decides to go digital. However, that may happen faster and more easily than many may anticipate.
First, one must remember that the Brazilian government is strongly emphasizing its digital agenda. Elections are digitally controlled nationwide, and winners are announced a few hours after any ballot. The Brazilian Internal Revenue Service has been receiving income tax declarations electronically for years. The inflationary 1980s and 1990s forced not only the banks but the whole financial system to develop online services long before the Internet was a reality, and that included the government. That being said, the Brazilian government will undoubtedly embrace ebooks as soon as the savings to be expected from such an innovative move are clear.
Actually, digitized government book purchasing in Brazil has already begun. In November 2011, the federal government included digital content in the 2014 edition of its Programa Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), which acquires all educational books used in public schools. Initially, the plan only proposed buying DVDs. However, for the 2015 edition, the government asked specifically for ebooks, and educational publishers are delivering digital content for evaluation in the second half of 2013. Since the PNLD alone purchased U.S. $537 million worth of books in 2012 (again, more than 22% of publishers’ revenues), the potential here is great.
However, the PNLD is not the only potential bulk purchaser. In 2012, the Ministry of Education bought 600,000 tablets for public schoolteachers. In the beginning, no attention was given to the content that such devices would carry, and the tables have not been distributed yet. More recently, the federal government started a bidding process to choose the reading platform to be used in these devices. Amazon and Saraiva are already approved, but the process has not ended yet. It is hoped that the tables will reach the teachers’ hands before they become obsolete.
Another area of Brazilian government participation in digital publishing that cannot be neglected is the purchase of academic content, either via licensing or ebooks. These purchases are made by CAPES , a federal organization linked to the Ministry of Education that supports nationwide graduate courses and initiatives. The CAPES Periodicals Portal offers Brazilian graduate students free access to about 31,000 journals and 150,000 ebooks. In 2011 alone, for instance, CAPES spent US $71 million on digital periodical licenses and ebooks for its library. No wonder Wiley has just opened an office in Brazil, and Springer is also moving in that direction. Brasilia is definitely becoming an important city in the digital publishing geography.
Distributors and aggregators
While the digital retail front in Brazil is dominated by global actors, the distribution and
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