By Emily Williams

Spanish telecom giant Telefónica and the Spanish Association of Publishers’ Guilds shook hands on a deal that allows the publishers to avail themselves of Telefónica’s technical expertise. The press release implies help with digitizing content (with a strong emphasis on standards that suggests adherence to the epub format), as well as access to Telefónica’s customer base through the company’s web portals and mobile technology. Telefónica will offer seminars on the use of digital tools and online marketing, and will partner with the publishers for pilot projects to test the online market for their content.

The initiative is oriented toward small and medium-sized publishers and its announcement coincides with the launch of Libranda, the e-book distribution platform backed by Spain’s largest publishing houses. Telefónica has been mentioned as a potential partner for Libranda from the beginning (see the Telefónica mobile brand Movistar listed under Stores on the Libranda website), with the telecom giant positioned to become an online bookseller for digital book content, building on its experience and customer base in the mobile space. This new agreement is presumably a move to speed up the digital content creation process and get access to books to sell in the future.

On the do-it-yourself end of the spectrum, meanwhile, Spanish self-publishing leader Bubok announced a partnership with the Canadian e-book community site Wattpad, which allows writers who publish books with Bubok to make their books available on Wattpad’s platform and mobile apps, and connect with the increasingly international community of Wattpad users.

(Here is more background information on Wattpad from TechCrunch.)