Planeta, the world's largest Spanish-language publisher, based in Barcelona, is hoping that a book about Hispanic firefighters will kickstart its bid to expand into the English-speaking market in the United States. Our Heroes (Aug. 15), by Chilean journalist Carolina Aguilera, profiles 15 Hispanics who were among the hundreds of firefighters to perish on September 11 when the World Trade Center towers collapsed. Planeta signed Aguilera for the Spanish edition shortly after the disaster, but then added a surprise: it wanted to publish an English-language edition as well.
"We'd never published in English before, but we'd been thinking about it for a while," said U.S. sales director Marla Norman, speaking from Planeta's North American office in Miami. "When Carolina came to us with Our Heroes, we decided it was the perfect way to break in."
Most publishers trying to open a new market face an uphill battle, but Norman said that Planeta's U.S. sales force was able to parlay existing relationships with Spanish-language buyers into successes at the chains and major independents. "At Ingram and Baker & Taylor, we had the same buyer for Hispanic titles in both languages, so it was relatively easy," said Norman. "But Borders and Barnes & Noble were tougher. We had to get the Spanish buyers we already knew to talk us up to the English buyers."
Norman said that a surprising number of stores, including the Borders in Puerto Rico, decided to stock both editions, albeit in different sections. But even when they're found under the same roof, Our Heroes and Nuestros Héroes might still enjoy different fortunes. Each will have a 10,000 first printing, although the Spanish edition will cruise into stores as a big fish in a small pond. The English edition, by contrast, will have to jockey for space on the overcrowded "mainstream" September 11 shelves.
"For Spanish titles about September 11, this is certainly the big one to keep an eye on," said Raquel Roque, CEO of the Downtown Book Center in Miami. "The English edition has more competition, but since it has a targeted niche and a built-in audience, I think it could still do very well."
Roque noted that bilingual speakers, especially younger ones, are often comfortable buying books in either language, depending on their needs. "If I'm buying for myself, I would probably buy an English copy," she said. "But if I was sharing with my mother or grandmother, then I'd buy the Spanish." For her wholesale business, which distributes principally to Spanish bookstores, Roque said she is stocking only the Spanish edition of Aguilera's book. But she is stocking both editions in her retail store, which serves an overwhelmingly Hispanic clientele.
For Planeta, Our Heroes is only the first step. Norman said the house is planning a Christmas release for an English edition of an autobiography by Jose Lladro, one of three brothers who founded the world-famous Lladro ceramics business. And early next year, Planeta will release a translation of Caballo de Troya (The Trojan Horse) by New Age Christian writer J.J. Benitez, known as the single most successful writer in Spanish today.
