The Latino Market: Tongue Twister
Such subtleties aside, Spanish-language readership is up. The most recent National Hispanic Readership Study—which measures book-buying habits of Hispanic newspaper-readers—shows a 66 percent increase in book purchases between 2000 and 2010, and an 88 percent increase for books in Spanish.
Random House's Vintage Español has been quite successful publishing solely in Spanish. Seven of Amazon's top 10 bestselling books in its "Foreign Language & Literature" section are Vintage Español, and chain bookstore shelves are heavy with the imprint. Vintage Español Director Jaime DePablos says that when it comes to Latinos, they consider their target audience to be native Spanish speakers—which is a small market. "Out of the estimated 40 to 50 million Hispanics," DePablos says via email, "we estimate (emphasis on 'estimate') that there are no more than 7 to 8 million potential native Spanish readers. If you then factor in economics, education, etc., you get the difference between an English bestseller, which can easily sell a few million copies, to a Spanish bestseller, which will very rarely surpass 100,000 copies."