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SpainKey Indicators Values Sources, commentsBook market size (p+e, at consumer prices) €2,772 million 2011 (Publishers Association FGEE; no 2012available)Titles published per year (new and successive editions) 88,349 2012 (Publishers Association FGEE)New titles per 1 million inhabitants ca. 1,872eBook titles (available from publishers)Between 30 and 50,000 (various estimates)Market share of ebooks above 3% (trade) FGEE (mid 2013);Key market parametersLaw on fixed ebook prices; VAT of 4% on printedbooks and 21% on ebooksReduced rate of VAT canceled for ebooks in 20122012), and for new fiction at around 8%, with expectationsthat 15% of revenues will come from ebooks by 2015. Fictiontitles account for some 70% of ebook sales. As for thedigital catalogue available to readers, estimates vary between30,000 and 50,000 -probably depending on the inclusionof selfpublished books and non-commercial items.Ebook bestsellers are largely identical with those in print,including globally influential authors like E.L. James or KenFollett, as well as specific Spanish bestselling books, includingLa verdad sobre el caso Harry Quebert by French JoëlDicker, El maestro del Prado by Javier Sierra or Misión olvidoby María Dueñas.Some indicators hint at a recent expansion of book reading,notably by the lending of books at public libraries (seedetails in The Independant, July 17, 2013). This is also thecontext of the new subscription platform Nubico,launched in September 2013 as a joint venture by Planeta’sCirculo de Lectores with mobile operator Telefonica (seebelow for details).The economic crisis may be at least partially responsiblefor an exceptional dynamic evolution on the digital end,as readers may find ebooks at lower prices, on average,than in print. That aspect was specifically highlighted byAmazon’s Spanish head of content, Koro Castellano, in aninterview as he summarized the first year of the online retailer’slocalized Spanish platform by saying: “I can say wedo not suffer from the crisis.” (“Los 365 días de Kindle,” inEl Cultural, December 18, 2012). Dwelling on Amazon’s internaldata, Castellano emphasized that half of the SpanishKindle catalog offered ebooks at an average retail price of€4.55, while a growing number of shorter books priced at€0.99 or €1.99 were added at the same time. In just oneyear, Amazon was able to expand its list of Spanish ebooksfrom 22,000 to 48,000 titles (industry organizations hadestimated that a mere 10,000 Spanish commercial ebookshad been available to readers at the time of Amazon’slaunch in November 2011).Amazon’s assessment is in agreement with a much broaderstudy by Bowker, “Global eBook Monitor” (GeM), a surveywith online consumer interviews conducted in January2012 in ten countries. Spain is portrayed as a “second-wavecountry,” with ebook adoption on par with Germany,France, and Japan: “Spain has similar proportions of thetotal population who had bought an ebook in the sixmonths prior to interview (8%) as Germany (10%) and Brazil(7%). This was around half that seen in the more maturemarkets such as the UK and the USA (16%-17%), and equatesto 13% of the Spanish online population.” Interestingly,with 9% of interviewees considering it to be “very likely”and another 21% as “likely” that they would buy an ebookin the following six months, the penetration of ebooks inSpain has been even stronger than in France, with 6% “verylikely” and 12% “likely” to opt for ebooks. The forecast forthe following six months predicts a rather higher growthrate in Spain than for other European countries (“GlobaleBook Monitor 2012,” excerpts and data interpretationprovided by Bowker for this report). This is ever more remarkable,as traditionally, France had always been on topover Spain in terms of Internet penetration as well as bookreading.For an overview of selected local players go to “Distributionand specialized ventures” on page 38Earlier developmentsWith the launch of localized ebook shops by Amazon (inDecember 2011) and Apple (in October 2011), a significantpromotion of ebooks and reading devices by the leadingretailers (notably Casa del Libro and Fnac) for the end-of-The Global eBook Report 37