MINING IN MEXICO S - ProMéxico

the lifestyle feature Editorial Industry
About The Art Of Book Publishing
A group of new Mexican publishers, with leaders who are only around thirty
years old, are looking to stake their place in the Spanish-language publishing
industry. Competing against the large publishing houses, especially those from
Spain, they want to show that they can find niches of cultural consumption that
reconcile cultural quality with financial viability.
By JOSÉ MIGUEL TOMASENA
In their words: instead of bestsellers, long sellers; instead of a Dan
Brown or Steig Larsson publishing frenzy, a slow-cooked catalog of
consistent quality; instead of fashion, literary merit; instead of the big
bookstores that churn out constant novelties, distribution networks
that reach their readers.
Publishers like Almadía, Sexto Piso, Tumbona or Textofilia were
not on the radar in Mexico ten years ago. The success of Oaxaca-based
Almadía shows that the fresh approach is a result of its focus on design
–its colorful covers include a window onto the inside– and a catalog
that combines acclaimed writers such as Sergio Pitol (winner of the
Cervantes prize), Juan Villoro or
Margo Glantz, with a generation
of young writers who are coming
to the fore, such as Bernardo Esquinca,
Alberto Chimal or Daniela
Tarazona.
Tumbona Ediciones, founded
in 2005, has published a collection
of provocative diatribes called Versus,
including some of the funniest
and most ingenious writings found
among modern essay, with arguments against poetry, against television,
against work and against copyright.
A report by UNESCO shows that Mexicans read an average of 2.9
books per year. However, a careful look at the 2006 National Reader
Survey carried out by the National Council for Culture and the Arts
(Conaculta) shows that a specific group of Mexicans with a high level
of income and education read a lot more. Those with university-level
education read an average of 5.1 books per year and taking into account
income levels, the upper-middle and upper socioeconomic groups read
7.2 books per year.
This latest wave of publishers
aiming to create high-quality catalogs,
realize that this is their niche.
“It would be crazy to try to compete
with Grupo Planeta or Mondadori,
because their market is very well
defined,” says Ricardo Sánchez, Editor
in Chief of Textofilia, a new publishing
house specializing in classical
poetry and contemporary art.
Their work involves a slow and careful
process of selecting books to create a
long-term catalog, setting up independent
distribution networks and buying the rights
to high quality works that have not been
published in Spanish.
On The Art Of Creating A
Catalog
Diego Rabasa, a partner in Sexto
Piso, a Mexican publishing house
that produces around twenty-five
works a year and exports its catalog
to South America and Spain, believes
that the publishing business gives results
over the long term. The keys to
success: quality and consistency.