Last week we learned about the new alliance between Kobo Rakuten and Fnac Spain, an interesting partnership that will revolutionize the Spanish-speaking ebook market. Or so it is expected.
However, Spain is not the only market in which Kobo Rakuten wants to conquer or at least have a presence in it. Brazil is another of the markets that we have recently seen occupied by Kobo Rakuten.
Kobo Rakuten has teamed up with Brazilian retailer Livraria. However this alliance is not like the others but Kobo will only bring a curated selection of ebooks to the Livraria retailer. This means that Livraria will have only certain titles that Kobo has not yet released in Brazil or other countries.
Kobo arrives in Brazil but not to sell its eReaders
And that's not all. Kobo has also partnered with the Livraria subsidiary, blooks and also to offer a new digital platform for the sale of ebooks. This platform will be called eBlooks. EBlooks is a new ebookstore that will be in Brazil and that will have an active participation within the new platform. This platform will create exclusive ebooks that will be sold first on this platform and later in the rest of the partners' stores. EBlooks will function as a publishing label, but instead of publishing with a specific publisher, it will be published online.
Esto provides incredible feedback for Kobo Rakuten, since it not only cooperates with publishing houses and companies in the sector manages to enter the Portuguese-speaking ebook market, a market that does not have the same customers as the Anglo-Saxon market but is just as interesting for its catalog.
In any case it is still striking as Kobo Rakuten continues to expand around the world while other companies such as Barnes & Noble or Amazon have put it on hold. Or, at least, it seems.