The Publishing Industry in Spain: A Perspective Review of Two Decades Transformation
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The Publishing Industry in Spain: A Perspective Review of Two Decades Transformation Marta Magadán‑Díaz1 · Jesús I. Rivas‑García1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2020
Abstract The main aim of this study is to examine the leading transformations that have occurred throughout the period 2000–2018 in the Spanish publishing industry as a consequence of technological change and its adaptation to the new digital environment. Firstly, this work focuses on the economic importance of Spanish publishing sector studying three key variables: production, employment, and export capacity; secondly, the analysis moves along the structural changes in the Spanish publishing sector through the new millennium, and thirdly, this study discusses on the main business models emerged in the heat of technological disruption. Finally, conclusions close this research. Keywords Publishing industry · Print-on-demand · Digital content · E-book · Spain
Introduction Academic literature establishes the first golden age of the Spanish publishing sector between the years 1900 and 1936 [5]. This period was structurally characterized by a group of small (little capitalized) publishers that not only introduced the latest printing techniques, achieving significant increases of their respective productive capacities but favored the articulation of the value chain in a broad sense by the delimitation and professional separation of the figures of the printer, publisher, and bookseller. Due to the Spanish Civil War, publishing activity nearly ceased, leaving 80 percent of the Latin American book market without supply. The response was import substitution from countries with higher domestic markets or standards of living. Argentina, Mexico, and Chile expanded their book production to fill the * Marta Magadán‑Díaz [email protected] Jesús I. Rivas‑García [email protected] 1
International University of La Rioja, UNIR, Av. de la Paz, 137, 26006 Logroño, La Rioja, Spain
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gap and satisfy the demand of an increasingly literate population both in their respective domestic markets and the Spanish-speaking market abroad. In the 1950s, Spanish publishers set out to regain their prewar status in the Spanish book market. The Franco regime, eager to promote a transatlantic feeling of Hispanicity in this and other cultural spheres, granted subsidies to the industry and legal measures to facilitate production and exports, to the point that censored texts within Spain could be published and distributed abroad. Between the sixties and first half of the seventies of the aforementioned Franco period, another moment of transformation and relevant change can be located characterized by: (a) new publishing companies that promote the sector to the extent that the normalization of the economic activity of the country is consolidating; (b) a union conscience for the defense of its strategic interests; (c) the recovery of the productive capacity of the companies in the sector; (d) t
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