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Revenue Service has been receiving income tax declarationselectronically for years. The inflationary 1980s and1990s forced not only the banks but the whole financialsystem to develop online services long before the Internetwas a reality, and that included the government. That beingsaid, the Brazilian government will undoubtedly embraceebooks as soon as the savings to be expected fromsuch an innovative move are clear.Actually, digitized government book purchasing in Brazilhas already begun. In November 2011, the federal governmentincluded digital content in the 2014 edition of itsPrograma Nacional do Livro Didático (PNLD), which acquiresall educational books used in public schools. Initially,the plan only proposed buying DVDs. However, for the2015 edition, the government asked specifically forebooks, and educational publishers are delivering digitalcontent for evaluation in the second half of 2013. Since thePNLD alone purchased U.S. $537 million worth of books in2012 (again, more than 22% of publishers’ revenues), thepotential here is great.However, the PNLD is not the only potential bulk purchaser.In 2012, the Ministry of Education bought 600,000 tabletsfor public schoolteachers. In the beginning, no attentionwas 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 processto choose the reading platform to be used in these devices.Amazon and Saraiva are already approved, but the processhas not ended yet. It is hoped that the tables will reach theteachers’ hands before they become obsolete.Another area of Brazilian government participation in digitalpublishing that cannot be neglected is the purchaseof academic content, either via licensing or ebooks. Thesepurchases are made by CAPES, a federal organizationlinked to the Ministry of Education that supports nationwidegraduate courses and initiatives. The CAPES PeriodicalsPortal offers Brazilian graduate students free access toabout 31,000 journals and 150,000 ebooks. In 2011 alone,for instance, CAPES spent US $71 million on digital periodicallicenses and ebooks for its library. No wonder Wileyhas just opened an office in Brazil, and Springer is alsomoving in that direction. Brasilia is definitely becoming animportant city in the digital publishing geography.Distributors and aggregatorsWhile the digital retail front in Brazil is dominated by globalactors, the distribution and aggregation services have notinvolved foreign companies so far. Furthermore, Brazillacks a good general independent ebook distributor withstate-of-the-art technology. There are four ebook distributorsof note in Brazil:Xeriph, recently acquired by media giant Abril, controls thelargest ebook catalog in the country. It distributes 240 Brazilianpublishers and has commercial deals with telecomcompanies to provide content to their cloud-based ebookplatforms. The company was a pioneer and has been creativein developing its distribution models, from sellinggames to aggregating content for telecoms, universities,and libraries. It has 14,000 titles in its catalog.DLD was launched in April 2011 after months of preparationby six of the largest Brazilian publishers: Record, Sextante,Planeta, L&PM, Rocco, and Objetiva. In August 2012,NovoConceito, the house of Nicholas Sparks in Brazil,joined the sextet. Originally, DLD was a defensive movement,a print publishers’ club to keep out digital interlopers.After a while, though, the club members realized thatebooks were an opportunity, not a threat. By the time theyall reached that conclusion, they already had a functioningplatform and signed deals. DLD offers 3,000 titles in theircatalog. This number might be misleading, however. Aglance at the PublishNews bestsellers list, which providesthe most reliable ranking in Brazil, shows that DLD publishersare responsible for a third of the print bestsellers onthe list. Their technological platform has been recognizedas a very good and reliable one by most retailers.Acaiaca is one of the largest national book distributors inBrazil. It is privately owned and has recently launched theirAcaiaca Digital venture. They are set to become anotherdigital aggregator and already have some publishinghouses to distribute. They also have a deal with Clube deAutores, the largest self-publishing company in Brazil, todistribute digitally their more than 25,000 authors that areonly available in print today.Minha Biblioteca is a consortium of the largest Braziliantextbook publishers —Saraiva, Atlas, Grupo Gen, and GrupoA— with the goal to distribute their digital content.They use Ingram’s Vital Source platform to offer cloudbasede-textbook licenses to universities but also work ona traditional wholesale model if that is the client’s desire.They offer over 3,500 titles and have already signed 26universities.eRetailersThe ebook retailers’ scenario in Brazil replicates the Americanone. Amazon, Google, Apple, and Kobo are present.The Global eBook Report 63