Category: Ibero-America

High Demand. Low Supply. Brazil’s publishers talk TransMedia at the BIG Festival. Other emerging market publishers would do well to take note

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The BIG Festival has not long wound up in Brazil (June 26-30) and participating publishers, led by Brazil’s international trade promotion project Brazilian Publishers, enjoyed a holistic overview of how book publishing is part of a much wider infotainment industry. The São Paulo BIG Festival, annually since 2012, is the biggest independent games festival in Read More …

Arabic, Chinese and Nordic languages in the running for the 2nd Reading Colombia selection as publishers target the international book markets

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Submissions are about to close for the second Reading Colombia, a joint project of the Ministry of Culture, the National Library and the Colombian Book Chamber. Reading Colombia 2019 will be a catalogue of carefully selected titles across fiction, non-fiction, children’s & YA and poetry, that will be up for translations funds as part of Read More …

Peru’s 6th Cusco International Book Fair set for August launch with indigenous languages the theme

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FIL Cusco has opened calls for participants in the 6th incarnation of its international book fair, to run August 29 through September 8. Bolivia will be guest of honour. In this UNESCO Year of Indigenous Languages the book fair will have indigenous languages as its theme and will give, special emphasis to the use, visibility Read More …

The art of the book fair – Guatemala

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Regulars here will know I’m a sucker for book fair art, and never more so than when it involves a local theme and children, so I was delighted to see one particular piece of peripheral from Filgua 2019. That’s the 14th Guatemala International Book Fair (from the Spanish Feria Internacional del Libro en Guatemala) which Read More …

Madrid Book Fair set new records for sales and attendance. 2.3 million visitors spent $670,588 a day on books this year

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Europe’s biggest book fair wound up earlier this month, and the numbers, actually announced a week ago, have just crossed my desk. 2.3 million people turned out to the Madrid Book Fair this year, spending some 10 million euros ($11.4 million) buying 550,000 books, an increase of 14% on 2018. From TNPS in 2018: Last Read More …

At BEA New York StreetLib launches publisher portals across all the Americas. Now weeks away from a pan-global presence

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StreetLib is the publisher behind The New Publishing Standard, and while TNPS is not a StreetLib promotional vehicle and we don’t routinely carry StreetLib news, StreetLib’s global expansion clearly falls within the TNPS global publishing industry news remit. As ever on such occasions, we re-print the StreetLib Press Release in full below without further TNPS commentary. Read More …

Cuba’s inaugural Havana Biennial of Poetry set for May 27

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Cuban poets will be joined be poets from 25 countries for the first Havana Biennial of Poetry, which will take place in the Martinez Villena room of UNEAC (Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba) on May 27. Alex Pausides, president of CubaPoesía, which is organizing the event, described the biennial as, a poetic action Read More …

As mainstream publishing struggles in Latin America, book fair attendance and sales continue to rise. Colombia’s Bogota IBF sets new record with sales up 10% from 605,000 visitors

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Celebrating its bicentennial, Colombia this year had itself as guest of honour at the Bogota International Book Fair, and attracted 605,000 visitors, up from 575,000 last year and 550,000 in 2017. Sales are reported to be up 10% on 2018’s Bogota event. Last year 1.5 million Colombians bought 1.1 million books at national book fairs, Read More …

Brazil’s 14th Flipoços sets new records as mainstream booksellers continue to struggle. Are Brazilian readers voting with their feet?

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The contrast couldn’t be starker. On the one hand we have Nielsen and the National Syndicate of Book Publishers (SNEL) telling us bookstore sales are in freefall. On the other hand we have the Flipoços (the Poços de Caldas International Literary Festival) reporting not just record attendance but record sales. Again. Are Brazilian readers sending Read More …

Libranda values global Spanish-language ebook market at minimum $84 million (75 million euros)

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The latest report from ebook and audiobook distributor Libranda indicates global Spanish-language ebook sales up 10% YOY, with sales in Spain up 8% YOY in 2018. It is the ninth year in a row for rising digital sales in the Spanish-language markets, defined as Spain, Latin America and the USA. The figure for Spain, which Read More …

StreetLib offers support to government and publishers of Uruguay and Vietnam in its pursuit of a truly global book market

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Italy-based digital books distributor and publishing facilitator StreetLib has offered its support to the governments and publishers of Uruguay and Vietnam as part of its commitment to a truly global book market. Full disclosure: The New Publishing Standard (TNPS) is published by StreetLib to further the debate about the global book markets. TNPS is not a StreetLib Read More …

Brazil’s biggest audiobook operator Ubook expands operation with original content and a foreign rights buying spree

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Flávio Osso’s Ubook has long had the Brazilian audiobook market to itself, with no serious interest from rivals within the country or beyond its borders. That’s about to change, with Storytel due to launch in Brazil at any time, and Amazon’s Audible said to be preparing for any entrance at some unspecified future date. But as Read More …

Peru’s Lima International Book Fair targets 590,000 visitors and $6 million in sales this year

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Registration is underway for FIL Lima, the international book fair that will run in the Peruvian capital July 19 through August 4. And, and to make sure everybody can get in the floor space has been increased by 1,500 square metres (1,800 sq yards). Event organiser José Carlos Alvariño, who is also president of the Peruvian Read More …

Brazil’s publishers anticipate deals worth $350,000 at Bologna

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With London and Paris in the rear mirror, European book fair groupies have their next fix coming up on April 1 when the Bologna Children’s Book Fair gets underway in Italy. A common feature at the world’s book fairs nowadays is Brazilian Publishers, an umbrella organization that looks after the best interests of, you guessed Read More …

Mexico’s Palacio de Minería International Book Fair attracts a crowd of 144,000

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The 40th Feria Internacional del Libro del Palacio de Minería wound up earlier this week, and provides another example of the myriad book fairs around the world that attract booklovers that spend money on books outside the traditional bookselling infrastructure of book stores and online stores. Book sales that therefore rarely get noticed by the Read More …

Colombia’s Bogota International Book Fair welcomes self-published authors

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Self-publishing is alive and well across Latin America, and nowhere more so than in Colombia, where the Bogota International Book Fair (FILBo from its Spanish title Feria del Libro Bogotá) is for the second year running giving self-publishers a chance to, participate in the Book Forums and other professionalization spaces promoted and organized by FILBo. Read More …

Brazil’s Ubook prepares IPO as Amazon launches Audible Latino, suggesting Audible Spain is still some way off

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Brazilian audiobook firm Ubook is preparing for an IPO in Canada that will value the company at anywhere from USD $8 – $15 million as CEO Flavio Osso looks to expand Ubook’s operations further into Europe. UPDATE: Flavio Osso points out that “The range from 8 to 15 million dollars is the the target amount Read More …

StreetLib completes January tranche of global expansion. 21 countries on 6 continents

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When StreetLib launched The New Publishing Standard in September 2017 we made clear the function of the journal was to stimulate debate about the much-neglected global book markets. It was not a StreetLib promotional tool, and not a vehicle to advocate digital at the expense of traditional formats. But occasionally StreetLib becomes part of the Read More …

Bookwire sees 65% ebook sales growth in Ibero-America in 2018. Moves into audiobooks

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Germany-based Bookwire has reported 65% sales growth and a 25% increase in titles registered for its Spain and Latin America market venture. The increase in Spanish-language titles was to the tune of 33,000, while for Portuguese-speaking Brazil the number of titles rose 40% to 32,000. Bookwire also announced its venture into the audiobook arena. Elena Read More …

Last week to register for Madrid Book Fair. Santo Domingo registrations are open

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Europe’s biggest consumer-facing book fair will be taking place in the El Retiro park in Madrid from May 31 through June 16. Anyone wanting to participate as an exhibitor will need to complete registration by noon on 11 February. The Dominican Republic will be guest of honour at the 78th Madrid Book Fair. In 2018 the Read More …