By Edward Nawotka

Today’s lead story discusses the burgeoning Spanish-language market for digital content. During BookExpo America earlier this year, we offered several articles discussing the state of Spanish-language publishing in North America, where the Hispanic book buying market is estimated at about $1 billion, of which 30-35% of those sales are in Spanish-language books.

At the time, we wondered “Whatever happened to US Spanish-language publishing?” and discovered that there is more activity than one might suspect. While there is some e-book activity, the focus remains on print publishing. With 40 million Latinos in the United States and that number expected triple by 2050 — eventually accounting for 29% of the total population (according to data from the Census Bureau) — are the Americans missing an opportunity?

The growing Spanish-speaking population is young, making them an ideal audience for digital content. Surely it’s time for the American Spanish-language publishers to begin developing products aimed at this market, lets they be willing to sit on the sidelines, content to let publishers from Spain and Latin America take the lead and the dollars right out of their pockets.