The debate | Are too many books revealed in Spain? | Opinion | EUROtoday

The e book, academic and cultural channel par excellence, can be a consumption good on which an increasing market is articulated: the Spaniards are more and more learn (particularly ladies and younger individuals) and the billing of the sector within the final decade has elevated greater than 30%, in response to information from the editors guild, which publish greater than 250 titles per day.

On the causes and results of this monumental manufacturing, the editorial director of Alfaguara and the literary division of the Penguin Random House group have divergent opinions, Pilar Reyesand the Errata Naturae seal editor, Rubén Hernández.

Abundance in tradition will not be an issue

Pilar Reyes

Luther, in his Desktop talks, He complained that “the multitude of books is a calamity.” Already then, six centuries in the past, it insisted that it was revealed an excessive amount of. It is a standard place within the subject of the editorial trade, as they had been to foretell the demise of the e book on paper after the looks of the digital e book, the disappearance of the bookstores with the rise of the good digital commerce platforms or the alleged unfavourable of younger individuals to learn, dragged by their ¡oh! fateful screens habit. However, the information present a really completely different actuality.

According to the Reading Habits of the Ministry of Culture of 2024, for the primary time the share of the Spanish inhabitants that reads books exceeds 65%. Compared to 2017, readers per leisure have elevated 5.8 proportion factors. The proportion of frequent readers additionally grows: 50percentalready exceeds, which represents a rise of three.8 factors in the identical interval. But essentially the most encouraging reality has to do with younger individuals – who we normally think about trapped on social networks -: 75.3% of Spaniards between 14 and 24 years declare that he reads books in his free time. Households with youngsters beneath six years of age additionally learn aloud: 78%, in comparison with 76% of the earlier yr.

The revolution that was going to trigger the Internet on the earth of the e book has not consisted a lot within the substitute of the format (paper in entrance of the display), however in a deep transformation of consumption habits and the methods of accessing studying. The confinement of 2020, brought on by the pandemic, accelerated forces already underway, compressing years of change in only a few months. Many premises that we gave immovable started to crack. This scenario might be destabilizing, sure, however it is usually a supply of creativity and renewal. From my standpoint, the rise within the publication of books responds exactly to the latter.

A big first reality is the rise in on-line gross sales of bodily books. This has eradicated most of the area limitations imposed by the standard editorial provide and has allowed not solely a larger circulation of reports, but in addition that the editorial fund stays accessible repeatedly. In Spain, this phenomenon, already widespread in different nations, has occurred with out impairment from libraries. On the opposite, bookstores have been strengthened and consolidated as an important actor to ensure the variety of the provide and to provide voice to new authors.

On the opposite hand, the digital ecosystem – and, particularly, social networks – has allowed just about any e book to have its showcase. Before, solely a small proportion of the revealed may aspire to be seen via promotion and advertising and marketing campaigns that may seize, not less than for a second, the eye of a studying group among the many overwhelming leisure provide. Today, the reader can be an lively irradiator: it data their discoveries and enthusiasm on social networks and shares them with different associated readers, which in flip perform as prescribers. Without a doubt, one of many the explanation why at present is revealed extra is as a result of extra books have the potential of being learn.

In this context, the function of the editor as a referee of what needs to be learn has modified radically. Social networks and the Internet, facilitating direct entry to an enormous quantity of content material, have utterly remodeled the best way we eat written tradition. The present editorial work additionally consists of listening to those a number of conversations and reflecting them, with skilled and selective standards, in catalogs that attend the completely different readers: from essentially the most demanding to essentially the most occasional. The books are, on the similar time, reflection and impulse of a altering tradition.

In an increasing market and in a rustic the place studying is consolidating as each day observe, the expansion of editorial publication finds justification. That there are extra books will not be an issue: the abundance of provide isn’t in any sector, a lot much less in that of tradition.

Overproduction is a enterprise mannequin

Rubén Hernández

Of the almost 90,000 books revealed in Spain annually, one third is returned to the darkness of the shops and possibly guillotine. This is known as overproduction. But it should be understood with nuances and in a broader context. In this sense, Karl Marx already demonstrated in Capital That overproduction is a consubstantial phenomenon to capitalism, and that turns into extra current in occasions, reminiscent of ours, with unbelievable progress of financial inequalities, the place wealthy courses change into obscenely wealthy and the center and poor courses are precarious extra day-after-day. And if the overwhelming majority of society lives with much less cash, purchase much less books: infraconsumo and overproduction are two sides of the identical forex. Let us ask ourselves: What are the European nations with the highest quality of life in response to the distinguished Global Social Progress Index? Norway and Denmark. And what are the European nations with the very best studying indices in response to Eurostat? Norway and Denmark. The battle towards editorial overproduction is subsequently a social wrestle.

However, if we wish to emphasize the concrete downside of the overproduction of books in Spain, the very first thing could be to ask: Who produces? According to the Federation of the Editors Guild, three out of 4 books are from the massive teams. Good monitor to start out monitoring overproduction … however it isn’t simply statistics, however methods. Recently, a great good friend, wonderful editor in a big group, informed me this: he at present edits 14 titles a yr, along with his tongue out and dropping many hours of his son’s childhood. It seems that they only communicated from above that subsequent yr you should edit 27. They will think about the way it will do it … and it isn’t an remoted case. The underlying downside is that, apparently, gross sales by title are collapsing for big teams (amongst different issues, as a result of much less demanding and devoted readers spend an increasing number of time in entrance of all varieties of screens). So they appear to be implementing a on line casino technique: publish extra books, guess on extra numbers within the roulette and belief that some contact.

Now, overproduction goes past giant teams. In reality, it’s housed within the very coronary heart of the e book ecosystem, which needs to be identified. The writer writes a e book, the editor publishes it with a worth, for instance, of 10 euros and makes it attain the distributor, who sells it to the bookseller. He buys it with a reduction near 35%, from which he obtains his profit, and pays 6.5 euros to the distributor, which stays 2 euros and pays the remaining 4.5 to the editor, who pays his half to the writer. Everyone votes their bills and search for a profit. And what occurs to that e book of each three that’s not bought? The bookseller returns and claims to the distributor his 6.5 euros, which he doesn’t pay him, however presents him a mortgage. In flip, the distributor claims to the editor his 4.5 euros, which he doesn’t pay him, so he contracts a debt. And to reimburse it, the editor has no alternative however to take a position the 4.5 euros he has gained (however that he owes) in one other e book that, after arriving on the bookseller, prompts his credit score, whereas the distributor enters one other 2 euros. Thus, one in 3 times {that a} e book is revealed, the editor and the bookseller obtain money owed or credit. The distributor, nonetheless, at all times treasures actual capital. Simplifying slightly, let’s imagine that for the bookseller and the editor the sale is prime; For the distributor the move is prime. Does this make distributors the dangerous guys of the movie? Not a lot much less. But plainly your corporation mannequin (in addition to that of enormous teams) is susceptible to extend the move, and with it, overproduction.

The answer? Of course, it isn’t, dry, to publish fewer books, however to extend studying communities with financial, academic and cultural measures that do going through the neoliberal calls for that border the whole sector. In quick, one thing like turning into Norwegians or Danish.