‘There is good news’ from the publishing sector in Spain, says The Markets’ visionary speaker Javier Celaya of Dosdoce.com. And it’s ‘radically transforming the cultural sector.’

In our series with specialists (analysts, visionaries, and players) who will speak to issues in the seven pivotal publishing markets of Frankfurt Book Fair’s conference, we hear now from Dosdoce.com’s Javier Celaya of Bilbao. He’ll speak in the visionary role on Spain’s publishing industry and what he believes is its promising outlook, at The Markets: Global Publishing Summit on October 18.

We read in Hannah Johnson’s text for our free white paper on The Markets, that, “Since the economic recession hit in 2008, the Spanish book market has seen a steep decline. Book sales dropped from €3.185 billion ($3.611 billion) in 2008 to €2.181 billion ($2.473 billion) in 2013.

“According to the Spanish Publishers’ Federation (Federación de Gremios de Editores de España),” Johnson writes, “on top of the financial crisis in Europe, the drop in sales was caused by reduced library budgets (public and school) and changing consumer behavior towards digital products.”

Despite that ride in the wrong direction, Johnson goes on to describe cautious optimism that things are turning around.

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