By Edward Nawotka
Today’s lead story looks at how Spanish publishers Maeva and Random House Mondadori are approaching the mobile and e-book markets in Spain. While both are making progress in the mobile market, the e-book segment appears stalled in beta.
The market for Spanish-language e-books has potential to be huge, as it encompasses both Spain and all of Mexico, Central and Latin America. And it was last June already when Spain’s “Big Three” publishers — Random House Mondadori, Santillana, and Paneta — announced plans to collaborate on a digital distribution company. The company is now scheduled to launch in May.
That said, it makes one wonder why in particular Spain has been so slow to launch e-books. A Brazilian start-up has managed it, so why Spain? As mentioned in today’s article, e-readers are available, though there has been much Twitter traffic expressing mounting frustration at the lack of books available.
Is this simply a case of companies with a near monopoly — Spain’s “Big Three” account for more than 70% of the market — just biding their time to get it right? Bogged down in bureaucracy? A little of both?
Or is this a case where, because of market dominance, the Big Three have less of an incentive to move quickly to respond to competition? And where are the e-entrepreneurs in Spain, Central and Latin America?
Let us know what you think in the comments below or via Twitter using #ppdiscuss.
4 Comments
Edward,
Sorry to disappoint you, but the truth, as usual, is a lot simpler: my native Spain is as “illiterate” (= not given to read as a matter of fact) today as it has been for the last 500 years. Despite all the changes since the end of the 1960s-1970s, the vast majority of Spaniards moved directly from illiteracy to the era of radio and TV, “jumping over” the era of books and periodicals. Just like the vast majority of countries in the world today that missed, in its historical moment, the Protestant Reformation with its emphasis on a book, a book which had to be read, interpreted and lived. Education, law and medicine flowed from that to the masses. But the masses of today have been given that without knowing where these amazing privileges came from or the price that was paid for them. The recovery (i.e. the reformation) of the West is inextricably tied to its dependence (or independence) from a books that specify, that discriminate, that tells what is black, what is white, what is gray, and all the shades which the images (yes, even the images in colour) cannot and will not provide. This is something my countrymen/women have never understood nor accepted in Spain. Reading in Spain is still a matter of minorities. If it wasn’t for the vast numbers of Spanish native speakers in Latin America, the Spanish publishing industry would have ceased centuries ago. Ask anyone in the industry and will confirm this fact.
Saludos cordiales
There are a number of factors, all of which contribute. First, ebooks have not really “succeeded” for most publishers in the US or the UK–though there is a lot of growth (growing from zero is always tremendous growth!) and a lot of interest and experimentation, most publishers here are still making a small percentage of overall revenue from ebooks. Second, Spain does not have the same level of installed computer base at home, many people have had computers only at work, at least in the past. There is some evidence that a majority of ebooks are read on computers, at least up to this point. Third, ebook devices are new to Spain as well, so there’s a chicken and the egg situation regarding ebook readers and ebook content. Fourth, I believe that the fixed price situation of books will impede their growth in the market. I don’t think most customers are willing to pay the same price for an electronic book as they do for a physical book, nor do I think should they. Fifth, the rights issues are complicating the development of ebooks, because foreign rights contracts often are not clear regarding electronic rights or the e-rights are expensive. All of these factors are making the development of ebooks slower in Spain (and in a lot of other countries).
That’s so easy (I work in the biggest Spanish publisher): we are afraid. And if we see a postman coming with Ebooks, we’ll shoot him. The decision took by the 4 bigger publishers (80% of the market) is to delayed all changes till: we can control the literary agents, the distribution, the new laws regarding those matters, and we have “news” from abroad. News that shows us which way we should go.
The sentence is “The first arriving to the shore, will be the first eaten by cannibals”
Ha ha ha, the word is GREED: as happened with banks, telecomms and others, in Spain we’re suffering the intellectual poverty caused by major’s greed: we still have the poorest network in Europe, with the most expensive fees for ridiculous broadbands, and Timofónica still opposes to development of local fiber networks, as happening nowadays in Catalunya. Yes, PRISA, Planeta, and other big publishers don’t want people to read cheaper, portable,not restricted, best books: they only want MAXIMIZE PROFITS, as the telecomms. And if that means freeze the nation’s soul and let the other countries go years ahead, then stop machines, and let the country be stalled while we squeeze the people and juice them till the last drop … who cares about future, people’s right to personal and intellectual development, and nonsense like that?
OK, then we’ll keep on sharing, and if you, publishers, want us, the customers, to hate your business, it’s your choice …but don’t complain later, cause you’re pushing us to by-pass your products…we’re not absolutely stupid, at the end.
…business as usual, isn’t it?
We’re used to be cheated by gov. and big companies …BTW, IMHO the previous post talks about something forbidden to avoid lack of competence: an agreement between majors to not to compete is called CARTEL, and it’s not legal. They always do it, from narcos to book industries (it’s not a so stupid relation, remember Eductrade
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