A training event at Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez in Madrid. Image: Foundation GSR
By Porter Anderson, Editor-in-Chief | @Porter_Anderson
González: ‘Professionals in the Spanish-Language Markets’
Amid a busy season in world publishing’s audio season (we review some points of this activity for you below), today’s news is of the coming PARIX program in Madrid at the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez headed up by Luis González.
As you can learn at the foundation’s site, the term PARIX is an acronym that comes from Training Program for Book Chain Agents for Recovery and Transformation through Innovation and Professional Excellence. It’s also a bit of homage to Juan Párix of Heidelberg, the first printer in Spain. Párix printed the Sinodal de Aguilafuente (1472) in the royal city of Segovia, a bit over an hour outside modern Madrid.
Luis González
And PARIX to González and the Foundation GSR is a new school begun in 2023 for issues in the book business. Its catalogue offers close to 30 courses in a program running 15 weeks.
It’s designed to present open events that bring together international speakers and ideas, the first being set for Tuesday (February 27), a 9 a.m. to 6 pm. program called Audio Day PARIX. It takes place at the beautiful headquarters of the foundation, where the Casa del Lector complex (Reader’s House) is such a standout, as Readmagine attendees will know.
In putting together its Audio Day PARIX initiative, the Fundación Germán Sánchez Ruipérez has commissioned Dosdoce‘s Javier Celaya in Madrid, a familiar figure in audio, to head up the program’s course called “Creation and Sale of Audio Content for the Publishing Sector.”
Javier Celaya
Many of our readers will recall our January 25 article on Celaya’s release of Dosdoce’s second “Map of the Spanish Audio Industry” report, the most eye-catching point of which was the assertion that, “In just one year, the audio industry in Spanish-language markets has nearly doubled in size, growing 75 percent in 2023 over growth observed in 2022.”
González tells Publishing Perspectives that the goal of Foundation GSR’s new Audio Day PARIX is “to help professionals in the Spanish-language markets—Spain, Latin America and the Hispanic markets in the United States—to learn about the latest international trends in the sector, discover good practices and lessons learned, and to establish contacts for future business opportunities in the world of audio-entertainment,” which includes, of course, audiobooks, podcasts, sound fiction, and more in the uber-sector of spoken-word constructs.
“Through this annual meeting,” González says, “our ambition is for the PARIX school to be an instrument for the Spanish book sector to decisively launch itself into different audio-entertainment formats.”
The target beneficiary of PARIX is a professional, the foundation says, in “literary creation and translation, illustration, proofreading, publishing, printing, distribution, and book retail, with the aim of promoting their talent in a digital environment.
“The objective is to promote professional retraining and the acquisition of additional skills.”
The foundation reports that in its less-than a year of operation, more than 800 people have engaged with its three-month courses online, which run for three months. “The associations of the book industry in Spain have a great role in supporting and advising the Foundation GSR,” organizers say, “for the strategic orientation of training priorities, either through its e-learning platform, or through face-to-face meetings such as Audio Day PARIX, workshops and classes in classrooms.”
Information on the program’s courses can be found here.
The Coming Audio Day PARIX Event
In the Audio Day PARIX program, which of course has its emphasis on the very fast-growing Spanish-language audio markets, some of the top-line inquiries are to include:
- Latest global trends in the audio-entertainment industry]
- Reading behaviors of audiobook listeners
- An outlooked boom in the Spanish markets of children’s listening devices
- Profiles of the Latino listener in the Hispanic markets of the United States
- Insights into audio content marketing
Among as many as 35 speakers anticipated to participate in the program:
- Michele Cobb, executive director of the Audio Publishers Association (USA)
- Sara Lloyd, group communications director and global AI lead at Pan Macmillan
- Karl Berlung, professor at Uppsala University (Sweden) and author of Reading Audio Listeners
- Gabriel Soto, senior director of research at Edison Research (USA)
- Ana Julia Ghirello, senior vice-president global partnerships at Storytel (Sweden)
- Carla Herbertson, children’s content specialist at SmallWardour (UK)
- María Jesús Espinosa de los Monteros García, general director of PRISA Audio (Spain)
- Hernán García, director of podcasts development at TelevisaUnivisión (USA)
- Gabriel Polgati, executive director of RDF Media (Chile)
- Juan Baixeras, country manager of Audible in Spain and Italy
- Juan Ignacio Solera, founder of iVoox (Spain)
- Kiyeun Baek in senior licensing and partnership at Yoto (United Kingdom)
- Tina Juergens, CEO of Zebralution (Germany)
- Arantza Larrauri, general director of Libranda (Spain)
- Mariana Féged, general director of Bookwire (Spain)
- Santos Palazzi, director of the mass market and digital area of Grupo Planeta (Spain)
- Carmen Ospina, director of marketing, communication, and business development of Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial (Spain)
The Busy International Publishing Audio Season
As mentioned above, 2024 is off to a fast start in terms of audio-related news and events.
For example, we’ve had the news that Bologna Book Plus and Norway’s Beat Technology are fielding a new afternoon program on audio at Bologna Children’s Book Fair (April 8 to 11), called the “Audio Forum.”
That was announced as News Corp and HarperCollins indicated that the publisher’s digital sales had increased year-over-year by some 15 percent, largely and significantly credited to downloadable audiobooks and a beneficial role played by Spotify’s new offer of audiobooks.
Bookwire, the German-based digital distributor and platform content support company, has another of its French-market “All About Audio” programs coming on March 7. (Registration for that online event is here.)
And the Audio Publishers Association in the States on March 4 moves its annual Audie Awards ceremony to Los Angeles from New York City, reflecting the growing presence of celebrity readers and their popularity among 27 categories of shortlisted performances.
Economic reports such as the most recent AAP StatShot look at the United States’ November market continue to chart double-digit growth in audiobooks, while Dosdoce’s Javier Celaya on January 25 reported a remarkable surge of 75 percent for the audio industry in Spanish-language markets in 2023 over 2022.
And in the United Kingdom this month, the AudioUK trade association has set out a manifesto of development for its sector by comparison to sister creative industries in the British market.
More from Publishing Perspectives on digital publishing is here, more on audiobooks and the audio sector of international book publishing is here, more on Readmagine is here, more on the work of Luis González is here, more on world publishing conferences is here, and more on Spain’s publishing market is here.
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