Among the speakers at this week’s CONTEC from Frankfurter Buchmesse in Santiago de Chile are, from left, Ralf Biesemeier of Germany’s Zebralution; Pola Iriarte, a Chilean translator; Diven Nagpal of India’s Seagull Books; and Chilean journalist, writer, and literary agent Vivian Lavin
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
May 28 to 30, Santiago de Chile
In the run-up to the 2027 Guest of Honor Chile program at Frankfurter Buchmesse (this year the Philippines as guest of honor, October 15 to 19), another of Frankfurt’s CONTEC conference programs is set to be held this week, opening in Santiago de Chile on Wednesday (May 28).
This is actually the second such event there. The first Chilean CONTEC was held in Santiago in July of last year, and the director of the CONTEC events—Buchmesse’s Marifé Boix García, the trade show’s vice-president for southern Europe and Latin America—says that this year’s program has 170 participants registered so far.
“There’s a very high interest level,” Boix García tells Publishing Perspectives, “from the Chilean side, including people traveling from other regions to Santiago and there are Latin American independent publishers, distributors, and booksellers coming from Argentina, Colombia, Mexico, and Peru, who are travelling to the independent fair La Furia del Libro (Thursday to Sunday, May 29 to June 1) and will attend CONTEC the day before the fair is opening its doors.”
This year’s earlier time frame for the event has to do with the Chilean organizing committee of the Frankfurt 2027 guest of honor program staging a first international publishers’ tour to Chile, bringing representatives of a lot of strong publishing interests in various markets to Santiago.
Marifé Boix García
“We’ll have representatives,” Boix García says, “from Suhrkamp and Wagenbach in Germany; Relicario and Mundareu in Brazil; Grove Atlantic in the United States; Seagull in India; Al Arabi from Egypt; and Aurora Boreal from Denmark.
“They’ll all talk about their respective markets and reading trends,” she says, “and they’ll participate in three matchmaking sessions, meeting 24 Chilean publishers,” she says. “Besides these business meetings, the traveling publishers will be involved in the two Chilean publisher’s associations La Corporación del Libro y la Lectura, and Editoriales de Chile will organize meetings and visits to publishing houses, bookstores, and cultural institutions in the city.”
Since 2012: ‘Content and Technology’
Inaugurated in 2012 in São Paulo, a year before Frankfurt’s Guest of Honor Brazil, CONTEC was developed at a time when book publishing’s transition to digital opportunities—and demands—had seized many book-industry markets of the world as a challenging and unavoidable focus of discussion.
That first edition, Boix García says, was focused on children’s media and education, just as Brazil was “exploring and investing a lot in technological innovation.”
“During the last years,” Boix García says, “many topics related to innovation, technology, business models supporting the book industry, and links to other creative industries have been discussed at CONTEC.
“Professionals from areas including audio, film, animation, and cross-media formats, as well as specialists on metadata management, digital distribution and other services have met with participants of local book industries. Speakers from European, North American, and Latin American markets have exchanged their experiences during the program.”
‘A Big Need for Market Data’
We ask Boix García about her practiced assessment of the Chilean market—a world book business that has, as they all do, a specific character, legacy, potential, and challenges.
“It’s easier to get a book from Spain to a Latin American country than to take a Chilean title to Mexico.”Marifé Boix García
“From my point of view,” she says, “there’s a big need for market data to be used as business intelligence for decision-making, for example regarding print runs. The basis would be to use metadata in a proper way. This would help publishers, of course, but also distributors and booksellers.
As it stands now, “There’s no existing platform showing the available titles in the country today. It’s possible to know how many ISBN numbers are assigned per year, but it’s not clear how many of these refer to new publications; and there’s no source with which you can check how many reprints are issued to see how many books are published per year and to which genres they belong.”
Another challenge—which Boix García points out is hardly new and affects all Latin American countries—is book distribution. “It’s easier to get a book from Spain to a Latin American country than to bring a Chilean title to Mexico,” as she puts it.
Publishers have tried different forms of cooperation, for example working in one country as distributor from the publisher of the other country and similar efforts, but it continues being a stubborn challenge.
On one hand, new possibilities include working with varying formats such as ebooks and audiobooks and using digital distribution platforms. Another has to do with the possibility of print on demand, avoiding shipping and storage of books in other territories.” (For another region’s take on this, see our recent column on print on demand from publisher Arpita Das in New Delhi.)
‘A Very Lively Territory’
Among the speakers at this week’s CONTEC from Frankfurter Buchmesse in Santiago de Chile are, from left, Ranya Bakr of Al Arabi, in Egypt; Ricardo Costa of América Latina, Germany / Brazil; Simon Lörsch of Germany’s Suhrkamp Verlag; and Cristina Flores of Chile’s ministry of science, technology, Knowledge, and innovation
In terms of how someone might describe the Chilean market, Boix García talks of “a very lively territory, with young authors and contemporary literature characterized by its diversity.
“Some international trends such as greater visibility of literature written by women is evident. Writers including Alia Trabuccho, Paulina Flores, and or Daniela Catrileo focus on identity, social realism, justice, and memory related to dictatorship.”Marifé Boix García
“At the same time, some international trends such as greater visibility of literature written by women is also evident. Writers including Alia Trabuccho, Paulina Flores, and or Daniela Catrileo focus on identity, social realism, justice, and memory related to dictatorship.
“Most of the authors have traveled extensively, so we have literature on international themes but linked to the authors’ country of origin. On the other hand, there’s a vibrant poetry culture and tradition in Chile. In addition, children’s literature stands out in the work of writers including Maria José Ferrada and illustrators like Paloma Valdivia.
However, there are some well-known authors with some translated works like Alejandra Costamagna, Alejandro Zambra, Nona Fernández or Lina Meruane who still have a lot more titles to be translated.
The objective now is to get this literature translated into other languages. Projects like Frankfurt’s Guest of Honor Chile are devised to change this situation. The Chilean translation funding program is very important, because it will foster greater visibility for their authors, books, and publishers. Chile’s presence in Frankfurt will surely help all the Latin American markets.”
Sponsors of this year’s CONTEC in Chile are Ingram Content Group; Zebralution; and MVB Latam.
‘To Promote the Sale of Rights’
Several of the CONTEC speakers and sponsors are making cogent points about the state of the market and the conference to come this week.
Aracelly Rojas Vallet
Aracelly Rojas Vallet is a journalist and cultural manager, who is executive secretary of the National Book and Reading council of Chile’s ministry of culture, Arts and Heritage of Chile, called MinCAP. On CONTEC’s opening day, Rojas Vallet will make a presentation called The Chilean Book Market in Figures with insights from between 2019 and 2024.
“We know that 2025 is crucial for a successful rollout in the coming years, so we must continue to fulfill our commitments, such as implementing various strategies to promote the sale of rights in the German market, projecting a cultural program that encompasses various artistic disciplines, and forging strategic alliances for these purposes.
“Ultimately, our goal is to continue weaving the fabric that will sustain the project in the coming years, providing resources, technical teams, experience, commitment, and a willingness to engage in dialogue for the various tasks this entails.”
Rob Clements
Rob Clements, business development manager with Ingram Content on Wednesday will give a keynote talk titled Print Local for the Global Market: Print on Demand.
He makes the point that what may be the biggest obstacle for Latin American publishers in establishing a print-on-demand market isn’t technical but relational.
“Most publishers in the United States, Clements says, “know the critical role that Ingram plays supporting the book industry. This is less known outside of the States, which is one of the reasons I’m attending CONTEC.
Print on demand technology requires that a publisher trust the distributor not only with metadata, but also with production files. It’s important to choose a stable and trustworthy partner with a proven track record.” (As many of our readers know, one of the newest Ingram Lightning Source installations has been made at SPC Free Zone in the United Arab Emirates’ Sharjah publishing City.)
Alejandra Chacoff
Also onstage on Wednesday, CONTEC’s opening program, is Alejandra Chacoff, director of the Translating Chile program, who will be onstage in conversation with Vivián Lavin in a talk called Aids for Translation, Publication, and Production.
While there are challenges associated with this translation-support program, Chacoff says, “The main hurdle is to ensure that the program has its own budget allocation.
“This would allow this translation program to project itself through dissemination strategies in priority or less explored geographical areas, as well as the incorporation of new lines.
“Our participation in Frankfurt 2027 is an opportunity to achieve this objective. I cannot fail to point out that Chilean literary agencies and publishers also play an important role in the dissemination of the program, because it can be crucial when negotiating the sale of rights.”
More details on this week’s CONTEC in Santiago de Chile at the Centro Cultural Estación Mapocho is here.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the Chilean market is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on guest of honor programs at book fairs and trade shows in publishing is here, and more on the international rights trade in the book business is here.
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