It’s been a hot summer in Spain, and we’re not talking only about the weather. Interest in digital publishing in Spanish is heating up fast. With the English speaking e-book market consolidating, the main international players in digital content distribution are now paying increasing attention to the tremendous global market opportunity in Spanish, the third most spoken language in the world with 500 million speakers. Spain, the leading publishing industry in this language, and the US, with a Hispanic population of 50 million, are positioned at the forefront of e-book developments in Spanish.
As part of RightsDirect’s special programming within Beyond the Book, Madrid-based Victoriano Colodrón spoke recently with Javier Celaya, on the line from his own office in Madrid at Dosdoce.com, in anticipation of the international book fair LIBER coming to their city on October 5. Celaya will conduct a workshop on new business models in the publishing industry at the LIBER book fair.
In a recent article for Publishing Perspectives, Celaya cited a “dramatic shift” taking place in the Spanish-language publishing arena, largely from increasing interest by the main international players such as Amazon, Google, and Barnes & Noble, in the wide Spanish-speaking market.
With over 20 years experience in marketing and communication counseling, Javier Celaya is the founder and CEO of Dosdoce.com, a Spanish independent consultancy firm that specializes in the use of digital technologies by the cultural industries. He is also the director of the Master in Digital Communications program at the University of Alcalá de Henares in Spain. Celaya has written several books and studies on such subjects as corporate strategies and business communication in the web 2.0, the role of communication in book promotion, and book digitization trends in Spain.
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