Núria Cabutí, CEO of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial, has led PRH’s Spanish-language business since 2013. PRHGE, which comprises 61 imprints, currently operates in nine countries—Spain, Portugal, Mexico, Colombia, Peru, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and the United States—and exports and distributes its titles in more than 45 nations across four continents. PW spoke with Cabutí, a native of Barcelona, about serving a diverse assemblage of markets and the “historic opportunity” presented by Spanish-language publishing.
PRHGE operates in multiple countries and continents. How do you approach catering to such a large and diverse market?
Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial operates in a market of 600 million Spanish speakers, so our work always combines a local and a global approach. Spanish doesn’t have a single epicenter, and that requires us to work with very different price points, channels, and cultural contexts. But it is also a huge advantage: an author can be discovered in Bogotá and become a bestseller in Madrid—or the other way around.
My job is to respect the particularities of each market while also taking advantage of our scale in distribution, data, audio, digital marketing, and backlist. Each year, we bring our publishing directors together to share what we’ve learned and make joint plans, thinking about how we can enable a book to travel and appeal to other markets without losing its local identity. It’s a decentralized model but with a shared strategy, and I believe that is the key to our leadership in Spanish.
I would also say that Spanish-language publishing has today a historic opportunity: the language is growing all over the world and connects diverse people who can find one another thanks to social media, which multiplies the opportunities for our authors.
What are the greatest opportunities for growth you see across Spanish-language markets today?
On the one hand, in Spain, there has been significant growth in reading habits over the past decade, with 65.5% of the population reporting they read for leisure in 2024. On the other hand, Latin America continues to be a growth driver, with GfK studies indicating growth rates between 6% and 20% in many markets, such as Mexico or Colombia. We’re also greatly interested in the potential of Spanish in the United States, where the Hispanic community is increasingly demanding content in their language.
The growth of the Spanish-language market also allows us to work on one of our global strategies: leadership in the supply chain. This has led us to launch technologically advanced distribution centers, like the one we opened earlier this year in Spain, and to invest in transforming our centers in various Latin American countries such as Mexico, Colombia, Uruguay, and Argentina.
What are some upcoming PRHGE titles you’re excited about?
The new Capitán Alatriste book by Arturo Pérez-Reverte, Misión en París, has created incredible buzz in Spain. The last one was released in 2011, and 14 years later readers are still waiting with the same enthusiasm. We also have a new book by Ken Follett, El Círculo de los Días, and La profesora by Freida McFadden, who is captivating Spanish-language readers. In Latin America, other big upcoming titles include El niño que heredó el silencio by Pablo Vierci, La teoría sintérgica by Jacobo Grinberg, and Qué quedará de nosotros by Eduardo Sacheri. Beyond the new releases, I’m thrilled that our backlist is thriving and continuing to sell well.
