2023-05-16 16:00:15
“The arrival of the Book Fair causes a certain commotion among publishers every year, especially in the small ones, because their presence in it is never guaranteed.” Ramón Alba, from the Librería Polifemo, thus describes the problem that, together with the Librerías Sin Tarima El Rastro and Antón Martín, seek to find a solution through the newborn project ‘Books without a Fair’. It is an initiative that they will develop from May 20 to June 30, in which they will open their doors to ten of the firms that will not participate in the great literary event this year: Baltica, Barrett, Dirty Works, El Garaje, Es Pop, La Umbría y la Solana, Libros Walden, Los Libros de Fronterad, Minúscula and Trappa. In addition to displaying their titles on their shelves, they will organize a joint program of cultural activities.
The Madrid Book Fair takes measures against the heat and will cover part of the route with tarpaulins
Further
“We have a limited space, so we decided that, at most, we would contact ten. The first ten we reached out to said yes. And that we thought we were going to have problems ”, the bookseller explains to this newspaper.
Valeria Bergalli, editor of Minúscula, was one of the people who received his proposal. “They saw that we had not signed up for the Book Fair and invited us to participate. She surprised us, but pleasantly. That the three bookstores dedicate themselves to us during that entire period, with the desire to hold events around our complete catalogues, is a real luxury”, says the person in charge of elDiario.es. In addition, she praises the “collaboration” between the ten firms: “It is not easy to get ten publishers to agree, but it has been simple and pleasant. We are all united by the desire to find spaces in which the bibliodiversity become apparent.”
“The absence of a good number of publishers affects the very meaning of the Fair, since this majority presence has been -and is- one of its main attractions and one of the most powerful reasons for its success”, they say in the statement issued by the ‘Books without Fair’ initiative, which will be totally free for the selected entities. Beyond the project, the Sin Tarima bookstores will have their own booth at the literary event that will be hosted by the El Retiro park, sharing a stand with the Tránsito publishing house. Polyphemus, however, is not on the list of exhibitors.
Response to the “dwarfing” of the Fair
The three bookstores devised the initiative at the end of last March, after the draw for the booths of the Fair, which showed which would be the firms that would not participate. The previous distribution process was not without controversy, after Barrett, responsible for the great editorial success of 2020 donkey belly of Andrea Abreu, made her resignation public for having been located, initially, in a hypothetical common area. The area that the organization had planned to accommodate a greater number of publishers without continuing to expand the linear meters of the stalls; but in the end it was not necessary.
The smallest firms that could not have participated in the event directly, but also the medium-sized ones that did not meet the new requirement that had left Barrett out: having to specify, unlike the 25 required in 2022, a minimum of 80 ‘live’ titles (those that can be purchased).
After a meeting called by the Fair, they managed to achieve that, as the director of the event Eva Orúe explained to this medium: “Everyone will be placed in booths.” The meeting led to the creation of new alliances and, for those that did not exist, generated synergies between the affected entities that ended up joining hands to alleviate the lack of space. The 82nd edition of the literary event, which will open its doors from May 26 to June 11, will host, in its 385 stalls, a total of 424 exhibitors. “At first it was going to be a more serious problem, but then it was partially solved. There have been more editorials than it seemed ”, acknowledges Ramón Alba. Of course, he regrets that “there is always a situation of concern about not knowing if they will be able to enter or not.”
This was not the case of Minúscula, since they did meet the aforementioned requirements. The reason for which they resigned their position was to protest against the registration fee that publishers outside Madrid are obliged to pay, as it is higher than the one imposed on insiders. Specifically, according to the Exhibitors Manual of the literary event, the difference is around double. The price of a four-meter booth for a publisher in Madrid is 2,605 euros compared to the 4,113 euros that a foreign publisher has to pay. In the case of the three-meter ones, those from Madrid have to pay 2,150 euros and the external ones 3,160 euros.
However, there is no difference for firms with between 25 and 39 outstanding titles that come sharing space. Whether they are from Madrid or not, the participation fee is 330 euros. Even so, having close to 180 live titles, Minúscula could not have accepted this formula.
“I understand that the Fair is from Madrid and that it is organized by the booksellers of Madrid, but it has been presented for a long time, and in fact it is, like the great Spanish fair”, Bergalli values from the Catalan label. Before the registration period began, they asked again about the tax they would have to pay and, upon discovering that there had been no changes – which they have asked the organizing commission for – they decided not to register. “In our eyes, the problems that have occurred have confirmed a very unpromising trend: instead of adapting to the editorial landscape as rich and varied as the one we have in Spain, the Fair is trying to shrink.”
For this reason, Bergalli celebrates the opposition that ‘Books without Fair’ implies: “The fact that the initiative already exists is very good. He collects and and expresses some concerns that are there. The fact that there are bookstores and publishers that do not quite feel identified with the evolution that the Madrid Book Fair is undergoing is encouraging”, thanks Bergalli. Hence, he insists on underlining the value of the project: “It seems to us a very good touch of attention, being born with the desire to see to what extent it is worth creating other platforms and spaces for publishers with a cultural vocation, and more well of a small size; They can feel more comfortable.”
The ‘golden age’ of publishing
“We don’t think there are too many books. It is true that the number of publishers and the number of titles sometimes threatens to overwhelm the limited space in our bookstores. But that is our wealth, our strength”, they proclaim in the statement from ‘Books without Fair’. “The richer the offer, the better you can choose. The only thing you can try is to cover everything. Each one has to choose the segment that he wants ”, explains the bookseller, who defends that an “authentic golden age of publishing” is taking place. It is a very rich market, and also a very poor one, because the books of the big publishers disappear from the funds after three or four years. The only ones who maintain them are the small ones”.
The three bookstores will house the complete collections of the ten entities. Key situation for the bookseller, since he considers that “seeing the entire collection alive is the only way to see the work of a publisher”. While waiting to see how the first edition of the new initiative works, it is anticipated that they plan to organize a second one for October, with ten other publishers.
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