The controversial case of EspasaEsPoesía and the young man Rafael Cabaliere, who has a huge following on social networks, hides a publishing business model in which the sales of the “rigged” awards are essential to maintain the diversity of the cultural offer.

At the beginning of September, the EspasaEsPoesía Prize jury met to deliberate who would be the winner of the third edition of the award created by the publisher Belén Bermejo, who last June. Before the poet Luis Alberto de Cuenca, singer-songwriter and poet Marwan, writer Alejandro Palomas (by phone) and the Deputy Director of Communication and Public Relations of Atresmedia, Ana Porto, sat in the Planeta building, in Madrid, the award already had a winner. The publisher had delivered five "weak” manuscripts, De Cuenca assured, ready for one to be chosen.

As EL PAÍS has been able to recreate, before the deliberations, the General Director of Espasa, Ana Rosa Semprún, explained to the four members the objective: to sell many books. And only this candidate could achieve it because, as she pointed out, he had hundreds of thousands of followers on social networks and, in addition, she pointed out, Bermejo had dedicated a lot of time and effort to get a manuscript from someone who had never published anything. Semprún emphasized the publisher's desire to decide on Rafael Cabaliere.

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