It is appreciated the latest article by Carlota Gurt in this same newspaper on the concentration of ownership in the publishing sector. The debate it raises about the big, the small, the independent, the oligopolies and Catalan culture is so important that it is good to start it and it would be good to do it calmly and in person. Because it is necessary, as we can certainly learn from it and, above all, to reach rigorous conclusions that allow us to work for an ambitious culture with a future.

Let's start by talking about cinema and then we'll get to books. The year 1948 was a busy one in Hollywood: it was the year of the Paramount Decree, which regulated the production-distribution-exhibition chain for decades and dismantled the studio system in the film industry. The studio system was the business model developed by the major studios, known as majors –that is, Warner, Paramount, Universal, etc.–. The fact is that in 1948 this decree arrived as a result of a case against Paramount that was settled in the Supreme Court of the United States. The decree established, among other things, that producers of a film could also distribute it themselves, but they could not own the theaters where it would be shown. We could say that it decreed a kind of separation of powers in the field of cinema. Why? Because what they were doing –vertical integration– was a monopolistic practice that limited and stifled independent cinema. What happened when the antitrust ban came into effect? The number of theaters showing independent films grew, and independent production companies that worked without interference from major studios proliferated (other things too: the relaxation of the Hays self-censorship code, for example). In short, the decree was the beginning of the end of the studio system, the end of the system that put control and power in the hands of the strong, in short, lifelong bully politics. The decree was in effect until 2020 (!), although Disney had already disregarded it before: with streaming platforms, everything has become a bit complicated (Netflix is not a movie theater, but it is a distribution channel, etc.). Once repealed, studios can not only buy movie theaters but it is also legal again what is known as block booking, which is: if you want to have the good movie, you also have to take a couple of duds, which, at least when I studied audiovisual, was the norm in television channels when buying movies "in packages". The result of this practice is evident: the quality of the content is lowered; well, we already know that quality is not usually the objective of big cultural businesses.The dangers of excessive concentration

But this is Llegim and we have to talk about books, right? Well, the fact is that the other day I went into an Abacus store and I was a little horrified. The special display areas (that is, those that are most visible and, therefore, most coveted: the ends of tables, wall displays, etc.) were mostly books from the Abacus Futur group. This, which perhaps should make me happy because I have published a micro-essay with them, made me rather sad, and the Paramount Decree immediately came to mind. Abacus has 44 stores (according to AI: I couldn't find it on their website), and yes, I know, Planeta also has its network of bookstores (La Casa del Llibre, with 75 bookstores) and Anagrama (La Central, only 5). Besides, Planeta and Penguin Random House (PRH) have their own distributor. Planeta's case goes a step further in vertical integration, as it also owns several media outlets. But it seems that in this country nobody really cares about excessive concentration as long as the money flows. The fact is that if you alone produce and distribute and sell and advertise books, perhaps you create unfavorable conditions for independent production. Let's return to the United States for a moment. Five years ago there was an uproar because Penguin Random House threatened to buy Simon & Schuster, one of its great rivals, and the U.S. Department of Justice filed a lawsuit: they feared that the PRH conglomerate, if it went ahead with the acquisition, would have undue influence on the books published in the U.S. and on writers' compensation. Even Stephen King went to testify, and said: “I’m here because I think concentration is bad for competition.” The acquisition was prohibited because the judge considered that the sale would substantially harm competition. Where does free trade end? Where do monopolistic practices begin? All in all, it also makes me think of the associations of writers and translators that for years have been refraining from publishing recommended fees for fear of getting into trouble (after a notorious case with the association of tourist guides). Does what competition laws establish end up constraining (harming?) more the individuals who work alone and have no bargaining power against large groups than the business monsters that monopolize the market?

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Of all the changes the publishing sector has undergone in the last decade, one of the most significant has been in young adult literature. Against all odds, this genre has become a key driver of growth for the market in the last two years, thanks in large part to the increase in readers it has gained—and continues to gain—since the coronavirus pandemic. This was confirmed last Monday by the Publishers' Guild. in the presentation of the annual balance sheetwhich (pending Christmas campaign data) forecasts a 4% increase in the sector, driven by young adult literature, which they predict will grow by nearly 15%. This trend is not new: in 2024 Young adult literature has also increased by about 15%. and boosted the sector's revenue.

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Year after year the Catalan Book Week It continues to grow: each edition—this year's will mark its 43rd—increases visitors and surpasses sales from the previous one. With last year's change of location, from the Muelle de la Madera to Passeig Lluís Companys, the Week broke the bad omens (it left the old port of Barcelona and was delayed a few weeks due to the America's Cup) and managed to break its own record once again: it almost doubled its attendance, going from 0,000 to 20% more than in 2023, which meant going from 600,000 to 720,000 euros.

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There are days when you come back from vacation and enter a huge bookstore in your city, where, as soon as you walk through the door, the first thing you find is a selection of books under a sign that says Booktokers, a selection of books with flashy covers and unknown names, all of them thicker than they really are, the paper size, multiplying the words and paragraphs to feed a gregarious and hungry crowd), and then there is another wall lock with the bestsellers, the new releases (including news that have been on the street for a year) and the recommended books, some of which are incredible to recommend, although it shouldn't surprise you because you already know that in this bookstore recommended It's synonymous not with the bookseller's enthusiastic reading but with the payment the publisher has made to have their book in a prominent place, so you pass through the entrance and reach the half-hidden corner at the very end, behind a column, where Catalan writers have been punished, and there you find a book with a cover that not only tastes like churros (which are no longer sold) but also like iPhones, and that will be read for this reason alone: to be the imitation of a cover, to be a repetition. And on days like these you think: "Fuck books."

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Year after year, Catalan Book Week continues to grow: each edition—this year's edition will be the 43rd—increases visitors and surpasses sales from the previous one. With the change of location last year, the Muelle de la Madera on Paseo Lluís Companys, the Week once again broke its own record: it went from 60,000 to 100,000 visitors, and earned 20% more than in 2023, which meant going from 600,000 to 720,000 euros.

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Josep Ramoneda, president of Grup 62, recently assured That, of every ten books sold in Catalan, three belong to one of the group's fifteen imprints, including Columna, Proa, and Empúries. A few days later, Periscopi, one of the independent publishing houses with the greatest impact on readers in the last decade, made public that he was now part of Group 62"In the face of the inclemency of the publishing industry, having the support of a large group gives you peace of mind," said its editor, Aniol Rafel. The news has sent shockwaves through the Catalan book world, although it's worth remembering that in the last decade some independent publishers—apart from Periscopio—have had impressive successes or have been able to build catalogs of great cultural importance. We've selected ten.

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"Being an editor may not be the best job in the world, but it is the best job in the world for me." Aniol Rafel, the founder and creator of Periscopi, said this in this same newspaper in 2016. At that time, he had only been publishing under his own label for four years, but he had already established a connection with readers that has continued to grow. the stir caused by the acquisition of Periscope by Group 62 and, therefore, from Planeta: it's news that could have been merely "industry-related," but which I've seen commented on by many people who have no connection to it, beyond being loyal readers of the publisher (who, now that I think about it, God grants them that connection).

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The protagonist of the new novel by Gemma Ruiz Palà (Sabadell, 1975) is a woman who, after half a lifetime of conforming to the rules, decides that from then on she will do what she wants: she leaves home, her children turn their backs on her, she returns to her vocation as a sculptor and goes to Venice, invited by the Art Biennial. "I have written the Hollywood protagonist that I have missed in films," she acknowledged this Monday during the review of the editorial course by Grup 62. "We have learned to do many things through cinema, but something that it has not taught us, at least not women, is to learn to age." Gemma Ruiz Palà has recalled that patriarchy "puts an expiration date on women" and that it erases them after a certain age, as they have expressed, during the years of writingA woman your age –which Proa will publish at the beginning of October–, "great actresses like Emma Thompson, Kate Winslet, Halle Berry and Emma Vilarasau".

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The other day, at a book launch, I attended a conversation between three independent publishers who discussed with concern and helplessness the changes the Catalan publishing market has been undergoing recently. And perhaps global sales figures have indeed grown., but for whom have they grown? One of the editors explained that, in her case, for example, the supposedly glorious day of Sant Jordi sold half as many as last year. Not ten or twenty percent less, no: fifty percent. Another commented that the average sales figures for each title were around 400 copies. A third told me on the phone that their sales this year as a whole are thirty-five percent down. So when we say that Sant Jordi went very well, we should specify who it went well for.

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It often happens that good ideas gain strength from unexpected coincidences and complicities. This was the case with Arcadia, which was born in 2003 thanks to the chemistry between two demanding, curious, and discerning editors and a bookseller. The editors were Montse Ingla (Barcelona, ​​1960) and Antoni Munné (Barcelona, ​​1954). The bookseller, Antonio Ramírez (Medellín, 1960), from La Central"We realized we shared very diverse interests and that we wanted to try our luck with a personal publishing project at the pace our jobs allowed," they explain. Munné had held management positions at Planeta and Santillana—overseeing labels such as Alfaguara, Taurus, and Aguilar—and Ingla was literary director of Cruïlla, which published around 100 new books annually specializing in children and young adult literature. Ramírez asked them to edit the first issue of a thought journal from La Central: "There were articles by Zygmunt Bauman, Roberto Calasso, Jordi Llovet, Natalia Ginzburg and Umberto Eco, among others."

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Mortadelo has found a new job in Cerdanyola del Vallès. From now on, the popular secret agent created by Francisco Ibáñez It will be installed in the new logistics center that Penguin Random House has just opened in Cerdanyola del Vallès, becoming one of the robots that fulfill orders day and night, from Monday to Friday, although these weeks before Sant Jordi it also works Saturdays and Sundays. From this large 42,000 m warehouse², which cost 36 million euros, an average of 135,000 books will be published every day.

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"Things don't last forever: if you have a dream you must pursue it," says Aarón Sánchez Tolosa what he thought when in 2022 the historic Geli bookstore in Girona The bookseller has closed the shop for good, after 143 years of history. The bookseller had been there for seven and a half years. Outside the shop he shared his love of good literature with another bookseller, in this case from Librería 22, Cristina Sagrera. "Geli's disappearance spurred us on to finally get our own project going," he says. She left her job. He became part of the team at Librería 22.

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The pandemic allowed "citizens to reconnect with reading," according to Daniel Fernández, president of the Spanish Federation of Publishers' Guilds. This reconnection helped the sector grow by 2.4% during 2020, but the taste for reading has grown even more throughout 2021. The data proves it: the book sector has grown by 5.6%, taking total turnover to just under €2.6bn, the highest increase in the 21st century.

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