MINING IN MEXICO S - ProMéxico

54 Negocios photos courtesy of sexto piso
Creating an
alternative selection
of works is not the
only requirement
when developing
their business. Small
publishing houses
have had to diversify
in order to compete.
“The secret is about knowing and being determined not to be misled
by commercial interests. The only admission criteria to the catalog
should be the book’s quality,” he says. “From that point on, the catalog
itself makes the choices. Does this name go well with the other 96 books
that I’ve already published Does it work” explains Rabasa.
“When you create a literary catalog, you’re not publishing opportunistically
or to follow a fashion. You are aiming to produce long sellers
rather than bestsellers,” he adds.
Rabasa often gives the example of Jorge Herralde, founder of Anagrama,
who was on the verge of closing down his publishing house after
ten years of existence. It is now forty years old and has the most prestigious
catalog of Spanish-language literature. Another example is that of
Manuel Borrás, editor of Pre-Textos, another Spanish publishing house,
who took 15 years to generate a profit.
Sexto Piso’s adventure began in 2002 at the Political Science Faculty
of the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM) where
two students and a teacher swapped photocopies of texts that were
no longer published. These books are no longer made, they said, so
we should do it ourselves.
Almost eight years later, Sexto Piso “doesn’t make a profit but it
doesn’t make a loss either,” says Rabasa. That is no mean feat if you
stop to consider the number of idealistic young entrepreneurs who
open publishing houses that soon go bankrupt. “We can live off this.
Many publishers can’t even do
that,” he adds.
Currently the five partners
have a modest salary that pays
the bills. And that is something.
In the early years, they supplemented
their income by other
means - through doing translations,
receiving grants, writing
for magazines and by living with
their parents.
“We never had a business
plan,” Rabasa is ashamed to admit.
“Our lack of business acumen
cost us dear.” They published
books that did not get
sold or which cost too much to
translate. But they learnt how to
calculate each book’s financial
feasibility without compromising
their principles.
“Reality soon dictates the
need for a good publication to be