Frankfurt-based aggregator Bookwire has been forced to stop sending ebooks to two Brazilian ebook stores, Saraiva and Livraria Cultura.
After acquiring DLD last year Bookwire became the main ebook distributor in the country for domestic publishers.
Livraria Cultura is a Kobo partner store but Bookwire has assured publishers the Kobo supply chain to Livraria Cultura is not affected. Or at least, not yet. Bookwire titles sent to Kobo will be sent to Livraria Cultura in the usual way. It is not known if Kobo is experiencing issues with payments from Livraria Cultura, and likely the only sign we will see if that is happening is for Kobo to drop the store from its partner list
A public statement from General Director for Bookwire Brazil, Marcelo Gioia, published in Estadão (among other Brazilian journals) reads (with due allowances for Google Translate):
https://cultura.estadao.com.br/blogs/babel/sem-receber-distribuidora-de-e-book-cancela-fornecimento-para-saraiva-e-livraria-cultura/
Dear Clients,
As everyone knows, the Brazilian publishing market is experiencing difficult times, especially an acute retail crisis.
Bookwire / DLD has not received payments from Saraiva and Livraria Cultura since the beginning of 2018. Some of these amounts have already been passed on to the publishers without the counterpart of the related receipts. For this reason, this communication is accompanied by two actions, namely, immediate suspension of store access to the catalogs we deliver until the payments return to normal, and a review of the most recent reports sent to the publishers, which may suffer a deduction.
For publishers that only contract with Kobo through Bookwire and are received by Kobo, their respective catalogs will continue to be offered at Kobo’s affiliated stores, which includes Livraria Cultura. We count on your understanding at this time and assure you the Bookwire team to solve any doubts.
Thank you, Bookwire Team Brazil
