Sanity Makes a Comeback

I want to begin by stating that I echo your comments on the last post, and that I too know that Latino publishing is not going anywhere. It can't. A recession will not change the fact that we are the largest minority group in this country, or that our numbers are growing—exponentially. We all know this, but lately, with all of the bad news coming out of the publishing world, and from Latino publishing in particular, it may have become a little tough to remind ourselves of this very significant fact.

So let's leave it to Random House to do it for us: Today, the publishing giant announced that Vintage Español is expanding its Spanish language publishing program from 15 to 45 titles per year as a result of a new co-publishing agreement with its Spanish counterpart, Random House Mondadori. In addition to its usual 15 front list titles, Vintage will take advantage of RH Mondadori’s world-class backlist to publish titles by classics of Spanish literature such as Pablo Neruda, and Spanish translations of English language best sellers, such as John Grisham. To launch the new program, Vintage Español will reissue 50 of RH Mondadori's best selling titles this fall.

According to PW Daily: “Messitte said under the agreement, Vintage Español will put RH Mondadori titles through the same publishing process as all Vintage titles, taking advantage of the infrastructure to devote more attention to marketing, publicity and production functions. Milena Alberti will continue to oversee the day-to-day operations as director of Spanish-language publishing for Vintage Español.”

And here’s something else:
“Messitte said Random still believes there is opportunity for growth in the Spanish-language field. Vintage Español has had steady growth since it was started in the mid 1990s and has slowly expanded its focus beyond its core line of literary titles into such areas as self-help and cooking. ‘We’ve been very pleased with the growth,’ Messitte said.”

Nice to know that, in the midst of all the panic that has plagued the industry lately, there are still some intelligent, forward-looking people in publishing who are actually paying attention, isn’t it? Now, I wonder who will be next?