Rights trading meetings at Liber Madrid 2021. This book fair and professional program alternates every other year with Barcelona as its host city. Image: Liber
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
In 2021, Foreign Rights Sales in Books Reached €388.9
In the run-up to Spain’s Feria internacional del libro in Madrid (October 4 to 6), organizers are announcing new developments in its “Buyers Program,” which is promoted as part of the professional offerings included in each edition of this public-facing fair with the Federación de Gremios de Editores de España (the Federation of Publishers’ Guilds of Spain, FGEE).
With the federation now representing as many as 800 publishers, “the aim of boosting sales in the foreign market of exhibiting companies at the fair” is a leading component of the plans of the organizer Ifema Madrid.
In 2021, the most recent year for which Liber has a report, the value of foreign sales in the book sector was €388.90 million (US$425.3 million), according to data from the Association of Spanish Book Chambers. Of those sales, €345.02 million (US$377.2 million) went to publishing products.
The main countries to which Spanish exports were directed that year were Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy, Portugal, the United Kingdom, Chile. and the United States.
Working with the Spanish government’s economic and commercial offices abroad, the program has so far invited a reported 634 rights-buying professionals from 63 countries to make the trip to the Spanish capital in early October. Invitations are out in 29 countries of Europe, 21 countries of Latin America, plus the United States and Canada, organizers tell Publishing Perspectives.
In fact, the rights buyers from 13 international markets have been given “preferred market” status, and they are:
- Australia
- China
- Egypt
- Hong Kong
- India
- Indonesia
- Israel
- Japan
- Morocco
- Singapore
- South Korea
- Taiwan
- Turkey
The ‘Priority Interest’ Program
At Liber Madrid 2021. Image: Liber
A “Priority Interest Prescribers Program” has been opened to focus on facilitating publishing agents, publishers, journalists, librarians, university professors, and heads of public bodies. That program is slated to bring 55 professional publishing players from 29 countries to Madrid, all of them–as Ifema Madrid is assuring its own home-country market–”having the capacity to prescribe, decide, and/or purchase Spanish books. In other words, the program is focused on rights players empowered by their home offices to close deals.
Liber 2023 also is mounting what it calls its “Reverse Mission of State Librarians” program, organized by ICEX in collaboration with the Economic and Commercial Office of Spain in Miami and the FGEE itself, through which more than 30 people responsible for deciding or prescribing purchases of Spanish-language books in US public libraries.
We’ll have more on the progress of these efforts to enhance international rights sales at this year’s Liber Madrid, as these reports are passed to us. The development of the reverse mission, the call for rights buyers, and the Priority Interest Prescribers Program are being made possible by a consortium of institutions including the Ministry of Culture and Sport; the economic and commercial offices abroad program, part of the secretariat for trade; ICEX Spain Export and Investment; the Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights (CEDRO); and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) working with the Commune of Madrid.
At Liber Madrid 2021. Image: Liber
More from us on book publication and development rights is here, more from Publishing Perspectives on Feria international del Libro is here, more on the Spanish market is here, while more on the international Spanish-language markets is here.