Expanding the world of books with translations

November 5, 2007
BY MONICA HATCHER

A little over a decade ago, Spanish-language books occupied the smallest slice of shelf space at bookstores around the country. They were dusty, overlooked and undervalued, and there were few titles beyond the classics, a little poetry, and reference materials, most pertaining to the Spanish language itself.

But the 2000 census and its revelations about the fast-growing Hispanic population sparked renewed interest among U.S. publishing houses in meeting the reading needs of Spanish-speakers. Many who had tried -- unsuccessfully -- to market books in Spanish in the 1990s supercharged their plans.

Then came Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code.

This thriller wrapped in an enigmatic riddle that shakes the foundations of Catholicism not only shot up the international charts but quickly became one of the best-selling translations into Spanish of all time.

While successful Spanish-language titles in the United States typically sell between 15,000 and 20,000 books, more than 300,000 copies of El Código Da Vinci were scooped off bookstore shelves across the land, ushering in what some described as a new era for Spanish-language books in America.

''Distributors saw the potential,'' said Lucía Laratelli, president of Urano Publishing in Miami. The firm's Barcelona-based parent company, Ediciones Urano, hit the jackpot with its purchase of the book's Spanish publishing rights.

''If we can sell 300,000 copies, the readers are out there,'' Laratelli said.

South Florida has long been considered a core market for Spanish-language publishers in the U.S. because of its large, affluent and literate Hispanic population. Most of the major Spain-based publishing houses have established U.S. headquarters in Miami. Some have been here for more than three decades.

''Miami is the biggest market for our books in the country and the area where we can find the most skilled professionals -- editors, translators, sales people, all kinds of professionals, and everybody speaks Spanish,'' said Silvia Matute, director of the general books division for Santillana USA, which employs about 70 people in its Miami office.

This year, the Miami Book Fair International will capitalize on the region's position by hosting a one-day forum on the translation market for industry executives, international authors and editors.

Booksellers and publishers agree the potential of the Spanish-reading market and the market for Spanish-language translations is only now becoming evident.

Even industry veterans are surprised by its scope. The recent explosive success of El Secreto, the Spanish translation of The Secret by Rhonda Byrne, opened eyes. After its June release, the self-help book almost immediately hit the top spot on the charts of Críticas magazine -- the equivalent of Publishers Weekly for Spanish books.

Simon & Schuster's Atria Books has printed more than 245,000 copies in anticipation of a mega-hit by Spanish-language standards.

Aída Bardales, editor of Críticas, said The Da Vinci Code phenomenon made publishers realize Hispanic readers in the United States don't live in a publicity vacuum.

''The Da Vinci Code confirmed that Spanish-language readers were paying attention to what was going on in the English-language market,'' Bardales said. Now, publishers are starting to time the release of English and Spanish versions so they coincide. Best-selling translations have helped the book market overall by alerting readers to the broadening selection of Spanish titles available at their local bookstores, Bardales said.

While the major industry groups, including The Association of American Publishers and the American Booksellers Association, do not track the sale of Spanish language books, evidence of real growth in the Spanish market began about six years ago.

That's when several major U.S publishers began establishing divisions to cultivate new Hispanic talent and focus on the sale of both Spanish-language books and English books geared for the Latino market. Notable were the efforts of HarperCollins, which announced the expansion of its Spanish imprint Rayo in 2004, and Atria Books, which established a Spanish publishing program the following year.

About that time, large chain booksellers began hiring Spanish book buyers to study market demographics and expand their Libros en Español sections.

BEEFING UP OFFERINGS

Foreign-based publishing houses, many with offices in Miami, such as Santillana USA, Planeta Publishing and Urano Publishing, have begun partnering with smaller Spanish publishers to beef up their portfolio of Spanish-language titles as well.

Publishers from Spain were for many years the only players serving the Hispanic market. But now they are competing with U.S. houses for new authors and translation rights.

''When we started publishing, it was really difficult to get people to take us seriously, outside of the independent bookstores,'' said Marla Norman, U.S. sales director of Planeta Publishing, whose Spanish parent Grupo Planeta is that country's largest trade book publisher. ''To go mainstream was almost unthinkable,'' she said.

While foreign-based publishers now must go head-to-head with their heavyweight U.S. counterparts, Norman said their participation has led to bigger market growth overall and is welcome. Last year, Planeta partnered with HarperCollins to co-publish a list of Spanish titles -- including two novels by best-selling Spanish author Carlos Ruiz Zafón, La Sombra del Viento and El Príncipe de La Niebla -- for publication in the U.S.

Profits also are now coming more easily -- even for lesser-known titles, Norman said.

''We can start to sell 1,000 copies of a single book and there's some profit, finally,'' Norman said. ``It's gone beyond being a hobby into being a much more interesting business. You can actually create some momentum within the marketing area, when you have more people involved and more dollars being invested from a number of different entities.''

Changing attitudes toward Spanish and the expanding purchasing power of Hispanics have bolstered the growth of Spanish-language books.

BILINGUAL'S `COOL'

''Spanish as a language has become more acceptable and fashionable. It's cooler to speak two languages. That, and immigrants are keeping their language much more than 20 or so years ago,'' Matute said. ``Immigrants have some pride in speaking Spanish, which results in more book sales in Spanish.''

Marta Salvat-Golik, whose parents opened Librería Universal on Little Havana's Calle Ocho in 1965, said having more Spanish books published in the United States also helps.

Before the ''Latino boom,'' she had to order much of her inventory from Europe. Shipping fees drove up costs, which were passed on to customers. Salvat-Golik, who manages the Spanish-only bookstore, said business is strong.

''We've gotten a big Venezuelan and Argentinian population now. Depending on how these different countries are doing politically and economically, they arrive and our business flourishes,'' Salvat-Golik said.

Determining which titles will work among the diverse Hispanic population can be challenging. Despite the runaway success of translations from English, Spanish readers are also gobbling up books written in their native tongue, those that reflect their heritage, or those written by U.S. celebrities of Hispanic descent, Santillana's Matute said.

In fact, Santillana's biggest seller in the United States was a 400th anniversary edition of Cervantes' classic, Don Quixote de la Mancha. Released in 2004, the book sold 100,000 copies. Another big seller for Santillana is a commemorative edition of Gabriel García Márquez's Cien Años de Soledad (One Hundred Years of Solitude), with 60,000 copies sold. The book, originally published in 1967, was ranked No. 1 on the Críticas best-selling list for fiction in October.

ASSUMPTIONS WRONG

''In [translations] in both directions, the business has grown in the last few years,'' Matute said, ``Before The Da Vinci Code, most of us believed from experience that translations didn't sell. We had one exception, which was Memoirs of a Geisha. We thought Spanish readers read the books in English, or they didn't know the books were big sellers.''

In the expanding global marketplace, English translations of Spanish-language books are also likely to become bestsellers, said Johanna Castillo, senior editor for Atria Books.

Castillo pointed to several top-selling English translations, including Javier Sierra's The Secret Supper, which her company published. It hit the New York Times Bestsellers list last year for several weeks.

''If you choose the right book, you can really have success,'' Castillo said.

Atria Books plans to translate several prominent Spanish titles next year, she said.

Despite the strides publishers have made, the major obstacle of selling more Spanish-language books is getting the word out to Spanish readers that titles are available.

Ernesto Martínez, the Spanish book buyer for Borders bookstores, said he is amazed how many people still wait for trips back to Latin America to buy books.

''A lot of people don't know that we have our Libros en Español section,'' Martínez said.

Top-selling translations can only help build the business overall, Matute said. ''If The Secret becomes a bestseller and everyone is reading it in Spanish, they see the rest of the books in the store. It helps all of us,'' she said.

Source: The Miami Herald