Big Three in Madrid

If most (but not all) literary publishing comes out of seaside Barcelona, the big media groups, driven by their school divisions, are firmly planted in the capital. Of the pack, Timon may be the most impressive, with its two arms -- Prisa, which produces films, TV and the country's leading daily, and Santillana, which focuses on textbook and trade publishing. As a school publisher Santillana has taken root wherever Spanish is spoken (including in the U.S.), and is number one in most Latin American markets -- ahead even of local school publishers, while in Spain it's in a close race with rival Anaya. Santillana's trade houses include literary publisher Alfaguara, Taurur for highbrow nonfiction, Aguilar for entertainment, Altea for children's nonfiction.

Presiding over the whole Santillana operation is Jesus de Polanco, with his daughter Isabel de Polanco as Santillana's managing director; PW met with her, with Emiliano Martinez, group v-p, and with Alfaguara publisher Juan Cruz, whose list includes Saul Bellow, Gunter Grass, Philip Roth, Henry Roth and Susan Sontag. Santillana has been a world company for some time, even if schoolbooks must submit to national adaptations. But what about the brand-new concept, Alfaguara Global, which will see simultaneous publication of top Spanish and Spanish American authors in all markets?

The launching of Mario Vargas Llosa's new novel marked the first time any publisher has released a title in all Spanish-language markets on the same day. Sixteen of the 26 countries involved (including Spain) have Santillana companies to print and publish, although in the case of The Notebooks of Don Rigoberto, only Spain and Mexico printed for all the others. In the first month of publication 250,000 copies were sold, 100,000 of them in Latin America. This year Alfaguara will put 70 new titles into the new "global" system, 39 of them Spanish originals.

The U.S. is special. Santillana Vintage is a joint venture with Random House; some Spanish-language titles are released in the U.S. through this imprint, while others go through Santillana Publishing in Miami, which d s language books both for Spanish speakers and English-speakers learning Spanish. Miami also distributes the mother country's trade books, and operates a home page to identify and link mini-markets across the country.

It's not only Alfaguara that is getting a makeover. Juan Cruz reveals a plan to dust off the catalogue of highbrow Taurus, adding a trade paperback line to traditional hardcover and pocket series, with 30 new and reprint titles per year. Meanwhile Aguilar remains the group's imprint for Fodor and Dorling Kindersley Eyewitness guides, gastronomy, gardening, do-it-yourself and other practical books, as well as sports and entertainment.

Anaya is another group with roots in the school market, now active in a dizzying number of areas (including partworks and multimedia). Imprints include Alianza for general books, Catedra for the humanities, Piramide for economy and management, Tecnos for law, Anaya Touring for travel. The man to see here is Victor Preixanes, the line to talk about is Alianza. A pioneer softcover house, a bit of daylight in the declining years of the Franco era, Alianza continues to publish upscale trade books for students and general readers. As in the line's beginning, the social sciences dominate. Alianza is also a major fiction house -- also from the top of the market, with signatures such as William Golding, Peter Handke, Thomas Bernhard and Italo Calvino.

Alianza recently got new management, and during PW's visit was in the thr s of a serious makeover, with new series and new jackets (even for the 1500 active titles in the astonishingly comprehensive catalogue). Freixanes admits that Alianza is a brow too high for most Spanish American markets, but its educational line is a market leader in most places. It runs its own companies in Argentina and Mexico, and sells well in the U.S. (with Catedra titles from Spain, Alianza production from Mexico, Argentina as well as Spain).

Still, this group's most interesting story may be the linkup with a maverick publisher from Barcelona who went west (to Madrid); the singular imprint Anaya &Mario Muchnik was born. "The Anaya group is like Holtzbrinck," Muchnik insists, referring to the German group whose companies include Farrar, Straus &Giroux, Henry Holt and St. Martin's Press. In the 1970s and '80s, Jacobo Muchnik and his son Mario ran one of Spain's most innovative publishers, until finances brought them down.

Mario's way now is to do as much as he can with few resources. He works out of a cubbyhole, but produces 50 books a year, and some books are much bigger than others (like a three-volume dictionary of history from Mondadori). There is considerable translating from French and Italian, even German (with the complete works of Elias Canetti). The active backlist shows work by Bruce Chatwin, J.M. C tzee, John Hersey, John McPhee and George Steiner -- though no blockbusters, they are the basis for a good home library.

You could almost miss SM on a visit to Spain -- the name stands for Fundacio Maria, and it's a religious institution, cloistered in a village on Madrid's outskirts. It began with textbooks, then branched out to children's books to fill the need for literature in the schools. Now it's the country's market leader in fiction for children -- but not one of the close to 1000 titles in the active catalogue is Catholic, or even religious -- with some of the best nonfiction coming from France's Gallimard.

Here PW is invited to sit down with the publishers, also with Jorge Delkader, general manager of the nonprofit foundation's publishing arm, and his deputy, Juan de Isasa, members of the Marianist order who preside over a group, including children's and adult general publishing and school books; a separate line (called PPC) for books of Catholic interest a list in Catalan; and a share of Italy's vigorous Piemme -- not to forget operations in Mexico and Chile with growing programs of local origin.

In children's books, Maria Jesus Gil, editor for the 6-13 bracket, describes a catalogue of originals and translations in equal proportions, fiction often coming from Scholastic and Random House, the nonfiction from Dorling Kindersley or Gallimard. Ten percent of SM sales are made in Latin America (where the brand to beat is market leader Santillana).

Bridging the Ocean

Then there's that other phenomenon -- the Latin American publisher strong enough to tempt its fate in the motherland. Argentina's Emece was founded in 1939 by a Spaniard who wished to distance himself from Franco (with two Argentine partners), and it filled a void created by Fascist censorship. "Now Spain is strong again, with world-class publishers like Planeta," says Pedro del Carril, one of the Argentine founding partners, "but Latin Americans intend to contribute their own talents to the market of 300 million speakers of Spanish."

So Carril runs Emece Editores in Barcelona, a publishing company in its own right, sometimes following the lead of the flagship house in Buenos Aires run by Pedro's brothers Francisco and Bonifacio, more often going its own way. Spain originates 40 new titles each year -- rights acquired locally, translations made in Spain. Books sometimes need two translations, each adapted to its continent. This is necessary for children's books but also for a popular title like The Notebook by Nicholas Sparks.

Perhaps five books each year will be brought in from Emece in Argentina -- say a Judith Krantz. Barcelona, on the other hand, has a higher literary profile to suit Spain's tastes. And so the same books are rarely bestsellers in Spain and Spanish America both. Michael Crichton and John le Carre do better in Spain, Sidney Sheldon in Latin America. "That's why we have to remain independent of each other," explains Sigrid Kraus, Pedro's wife and editorial director.

Edhasa could be Emece's twin. It is the Spanish offspring of Argentina's Editorial Sudamericana, another 1939 company founded by an exile from Franco Spain, Antoni Lopez Llausas, who had been a Catalan publisher in Barcelona; the Buenos Aires house is run by his descendants. In 1946 Lopez Llausas returned to Spain to set up Edhasa (standing for Editora y Distribuidora Hispano Americana).

Active publishing began in Barcelona at the end of the 1950s, when Edhasa carved out a niche in contemporary classics and science fiction; by the time of Franco's disappearance it enjoyed a reputation as a significant cultural publisher -- but it could hardly be said to have taken off. Enter a new team, headed by Daniel Fernandez (ex-Grijalbo publishing director). He'll continue to publish his own list, sharing only certain titles with the Argentina parent house. In Barcelona the image is literary; in Argentina the house may now be best known for quality nonfiction, notably investigative journalism. "The Spanish are difficult now," sighs Fernandez. "We find it easier to sell Spanish books in Argentina than Argentine in Spain."

There must be a considerable number of Anglos who never heard of Oceano, although it is one of the Spanish world's biggest publishing groups (with $300 million net turnover); there's also the peculiarity that although Oceano is based in Barcelona it d s more than 80% of its business in Latin America. The stock in trade here is dictionaries and reference works, school, children's and technical books, multimedia -- sold door to door via a company sales network in the Spain, and through wholly-owned subsidiaries or partnerships in the New World. If the group takes second place in reference to market leader Planeta in Spain, it is an unchallenged number one in Latin America.

It's still two worlds, as Oceano's founder and CEO, Josep Lluis Monreal, demonstrates. Monreal can produce an impressive 15- to 20-volume encyclopedia -- but only for the Spanish market. Then he must repackage his data into one- or three-volume sets for Latin America. Take Oceano Uno, a 1784-page color-illustrated encyclopedia dictionary; it has sold five million copies since 1990. The dictionary can be offered under the installment plan in Latin America -- but not in Spain, because the price seems too low for Spanish readers.

Before leaving, the visitor talks with Josep's daughter, Silvia Lluis, who in 1988 founded her own trade list called Circe. She filled a niche not otherwise covered in Spain: biographies of women -- literary or artistic personalities in the main, such as Jane Bowles, Vanessa Bell and Virginia Woolf, Colette, Frida Kahlo. There was another gap in interesting, slightly wild men, so then came biographies of Dylan Thomas and Robert Mapplethorpe.

She's now also doing fiction, and it's also the best; somehow she was the first in Spain to think about Don DeLillo. So she signed up Mao II, The Names, Running Dog and the forthcoming Underworld. She d s 15 new books -- all of them translations -- each year, distributed through normal trade channels in Spain and via the Oceano network in Spanish America.

Madrid's Specialists

Publishers with their noses to the grindstone thrive in Madrid. Espasa Calpe was the academic imprint par excellence, its roots sunk deep into encyclopedias and other basic reference works, and the country's pioneer reprint line Astral. The house got its first dusting off when it was acquired by a partnership of Planeta and France's Groupe de la Cite (now CEP). Now, under 100% Planeta ownership, Espasa has been given new management and a writ for a true makeover.

Whatever new things it d s, they've got to be solid things, in keeping with Espasa's reputation. Editorial director Juan Gonzalez explains the move into contemporary Spanish fiction -- few books, but books that go far (Ana Maria Matute's latest novel sold over 100,000 copies). Translations are limited to Astral classics -- Faulkner, Lampedusa, Melville, Shakespeare. Meanwhile, they aren't letting go of encyclopedias, including one in CD-ROM.

Another Madrid outpost of the Planeta group, Temas de Hoy is a doggedly nonfiction imprint, doing news-related books on one hand (hence the logo), and on the other self-help, history, memoirs and biography. New managing director Julian Leon was brought in to streamline the list, reducing the production of political books -- a diminishing market in Spain. Last year Temas de Hoy did 80 new books, but won't do many more than 60 this year; the hope is to improve sales per title. The new manager sees the 50,000 new titles published in his country last year as preposterous, considering the market; he'll contribute to the salutary downsizing.

On the non-topical side, Temas de Hoy d s best with Spanish originals, books about health and family problems, say, commissioned from authors close to the preoccupations of Spaniards; the point is to find writers already known from TV (among other things).

PW was paying a first visit to Debate, founded modestly in 1977 by Angel Lucia to do literary fiction, university-level essays and illustrated reference. The publisher went out for new Spanish talent, on the foreign side taking on V.S. Naipaul, Joseph Heller and J.D. Salinger. Soon Debate was also into quality popular science (Edward Lorenz's The Essence of Chaos) and buying illustrated reference from the best international packagers.

But in 1993 it seemed to make sense to join a group-and Bertelsmann was shopping for a quality imprint. Debate thus became a freestanding affiliate of Plaza y Janes, headquartered in a Bertelsmann building in Madrid. Lucia d s some 40 titles a year, six out of 10 are Spanish originals, but the latest list shows fiction by William Gaddis, Irvine Welsh and David Mamet. There is a Spanish cookbook, a series on alternative lifestyles from Britain's Duncan Baird. House creations include a 10-volume, 2000-page illustrated world history based on The Penguin History of the World. And the complete works of art historian E.H. Gombrich, beginning with the classic The Story of Art.

At EDAFPW talks to managing director Jose Antonio Fossati (the AF in the logo stands for grandfather Antonio Fossati, founder of the firm). Launched in the late 1950s as a door-to-door reference line, the house is now largely geared to trade sales, with separate catalogues for natural health and New Age, children's series, gift books (from Exley in the U.K.), as well as classics, dictionaries and school aids. Clearly EDAF is not concerned about projecting a definable image. All told, there are some 100 new releases yearly, with translations accounting for up to eight books in 10.

Grupo Everest was celebrating a 40th anniversary during PW's tour. Founded as a regional distributor in Leon in northern Spain, it maintained its headquarters there when it became a publisher for the world. In fact it opened its publishing department in 1962 to produce dictionaries, chiefly for export to Latin America. Two decades later Ediciones Gaviota was set up to do children's books, one list for mass market (with a Disney license) and another for the trade (story books, fiction for brackets up to age 12). Carmen Olivie, Gaviota's publisher, describes a program responsible for some 120 new releases annually, which includes a considerable input of Walt Disney material.

Elizabeth Reilly, publications director of Disney in Spain, sits astride a book program shared among three separate publishers -- Ediciones B and Brasola in Barcelona, as well as Everest. In all, the licensees do some 60 titles and activity books annually, quite a bit more with regional language versions.

Everest's Nuria Mayoral describes the program of the flagship house -- books for kindergarten, primary and secondary schools, covering science, Catholic religion and family reference. There is also a line of regional guidebooks covering Spain and Portugal, now even including one-shots on New York and California.