Random Español Halts Original Spanish Books

Original Spanish-language publishing, as recently as two years ago one of the biggest growth areas for U.S. houses, is taking a hit at the Random House Trade group. The company's three-year-old imprint, Random House Español, will discontinue its original program in the U.S. and has eliminated the position of publishing director Lisa Alpert.

Instead, the company said, it will focus on importing titles from abroad that are published under a joint agreement between Random and Italian giant Mondadori, an arrangement that allows Random to tap into books from noted Spanish-language houses such as Plaza & Janes and Sudamericana. The imported titles will continue to be published under the Random House Español imprint, now under Bonnie Ammer's Random House Information Group.

Random House Español has published between two and three dozen original titles over the past two years, primarily nonfiction, and has about a half-dozen left in the pipeline this year. Random House Inc., however, still has strong original Spanish publishing via Knopf and Vintage Español, a program that is more than a decade old and has produced such bestsellers as Sandra Cisneros's Caramelo and Gabriel García Márquez's long-awaited memoir, Vivir para contarla.

Since the Mondadori agreement was signed a few years ago, Random House Español has made several hundred internationally published Spanish books available stateside, though the company said it expects, after the shift, "to be selective about the titles we're going to distribute in heavy quantity."

Random House spokesperson Stuart Applebaum said the move does not demonstrate a lack of belief in the U.S. Spanish-language market—but it does reflect a certain reality. "For all the talk about the broad and large Spanish-language demographic, it still remains a challenge to reach those consumers on a consistent and productive basis," he said.