Argentina

In a new report, German ebook distribution platform Bookwire forecasts that digital sales will represent between 10% and 15% of total sales in the Latin American markets by 2020. Today, it represents 1% across the whole region.

The Spanish-language markets represent over 500 million Spanish speakers mainly living in Latin America and Spain, along with the US, where the latest census counted over 50 million people of Hispanic or Latino origin, including nearly 40 million who speak Spanish at home.

Earlier this month at a writer's panel at the Guadalajara International Book Fair (FIL), Argentine poet Mempo Giardinelli lamented the current state of publishing in Argentina. Argentina, Giardinelli recalled, used to translate, edit, and publish mass volumes of foreign literature. That Argentina, he insisted, doesn't exist anymore.

But a brief stroll down the aisles of Guadalajara suggested otherwise. Independent presses like Eterna Cadencia and La Caja Negra seem to carry equal parts literature in translation and Spanish language titles while one press, La Bestia Equilatera, is almost unilaterally focused on publishing literature in translation.

Rob Johnson is the founder and director at Research Consulting Limited and former head of research operations at the University of Nottingham. He will be leading a free webinar Open Access: The Journey So Far with the Copyright Clearance Center reviewing the progress of the OA movement and its future.

Buzzfeed has gathered images of the most awe-inspiring, quirky, and just plain cool bookstores throughout the world. If you haven't visited these bookstores yet, you should definitely consider making a special trip. An international bookstore circuit might be just the way to close out the summer!

Aptara, a provider of digital publishing services, has just announced a new publishing partnership with the Vatican, for whom they will produce ebooks. These ebooks, the Vatican’s first, will be an illustrated series of Pope Benedict’s weekly addresses, dating back to March, 2006.

The eBook editions of J.K. Rowling’s bestselling Harry Potter stories are available now for the first time in French, Italian, German and Spanish (Castilian).  The seven eBooks in the series are on sale in these languages at Pottermore, the free-to-use website and exclusive retailer of Harry Potter eBooks and digital audiobooks, which is partnered by Sony.

Making the titles accessible to the widest range of international readers, the eBooks are compatible with all leading reading devices and platforms, including integrations with Sony’s Reader, Google Play, Amazon Kindle and NOOK® by Barnes & Noble.  Ensuring that the stories can be read at any time and anywhere, every eBook purchased can be downloaded for personal use on a range of devices and platforms, including personal computers, eReaders, tablets and mobile phones.  The result is a pioneering initiative for consumers: one retail source supporting multiple platforms and devices. 

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