A substantial U.S. publishing contingent attended this year’s Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL) in Mexico, which ran from November 28 to December 6. The American Collective Stand (ACS), which represented numerous publishers at FIL, had a 40% increase in the number of participants this year over 2014. Jon Malinowski, president of Combined Book Exhibit, the parent company of ACS, says he had to turn away some publishers because he ran out of booths. The American Psychological Association, Fox Chapel, Highlights for Children, Simon & Schuster, Sterling, and World Book all participated in ACS this year. Malinowski also notes that the greatest growth in attendance for ACS was from self-published authors: “Self-publishing in Spanish is just exploding, and we are seeing it this year more than ever before.”
In a sign of how important the Spanish-language market has become for publishers, Penguin Random House CEO Markus Dohle gave one of the major presentations at FIL. He emphasized that Latin America and the U.S. Hispanic market are a priority for PRH. At the moment, the strongest growth in the region is coming from Mexico, Dohle said. To take advantage of that growth, PRH bought trade imprints including Alfaguara, Suma de Letras, and Taurus from Spain-based Santillana last year. The acquisition expanded PRH’s consumer-publishing business in Spain and Latin American and will also help the company expand its presence in the U.S. Spanish-language market as well.
