CERLALC Report: The Ibero-American Book Space 2020

The CERLALC, Centro Regional para el Fomento de la Lectura en América Latina y el Caribe, [Regional Center for the Promotion of Reading in Latin America and the Caribbean] offers a data analysis in its report El espacio iberoamericano del libro 2020 [The Ibero-American Book Space].

This report appears at a juncture that has once again highlighted the need for regular and systematic information on the publishing sector: statistics provide a navigation map to guide better business and public policy decisions.

This report, published in 2006 for the first time, seeks to provide an overview of book publishing in Ibero-America based on the consolidation and analysis of data from the ISBN registry. It is this regional and comparative perspective that has made El espacio iberoamericano del libro a reference publication.

This new issue of The Ibero-American Book Space is being published on the 50th anniversary of the CERLALC. This publication is part of one of the tasks that the organization has been carrying out over the last fifty years to contribute to the strengthening of book production and circulation. A way to make available information that contributes to the understanding of events in the publishing sectors of its member countries.

The report

This report comes at a time of reckoning about what the COVID-19 pandemic has meant and will mean for the publishing sector, not only in terms of economic consequences, but also in terms of transformations in various areas, from the day-to-day life of bookstores, distributors and publishers to the habits of consumption and purchase of books.

The players in the sector are facing a complex scenario that forces them to manage multiple channels and formats, to incorporate new ways of doing things and, as was already evident before the COVID-19 outbreak, to substantially improve their forms of communication with readers. If anything became evident during these months, it is the fact that the bet on forging communities of readers is a safe bet.

On this fiftieth anniversary, the Center renews its commitment to the goal of advancing actions aimed at contributing to the development of dynamic and sustainable publishing sectors in its member countries.

To answer the question about the impact of COVID-19 on the publishing sector, the pages of this report of The Ibero-American Book Space provide an overview of the performance of publishing markets in various countries around the world in 2020. It is mainly based on turnover and sales information published in specialized media and in reports from trade organizations, from which we have tried to compose a succinct overview of what has happened.