The profile of the guests includes importers, distributors, booksellers, rights buyers, as well as heads of public agencies and libraries, literary agents, university professors, publishers, and journalists.

IFEMA MADRID and the Federation of Spanish Publishers’ Guilds (FGEE), in collaboration with various institutions, have selected these key professionals from the book market to participate in business meetings with exhibitors at the next edition of the International Book Fair, to be held from October 4 to 6 at the Madrid Trade Fair Center.

Once again this year, the companies participating in the International Book Fair, LIBER 2023 will have the opportunity to develop business contacts to enhance the presence of their books in foreign markets. All this is thanks to the implementation of the Buyers Program that, as in each edition, promotes the Federation of Publishers Guild of Spain (FGEE) at the suggestion of the more than 800 publishers members of the various guilds and associations members and the Economic and Commercial Offices of Spain abroad, with the aim of boosting sales in foreign markets of companies exhibiting at the fair, mostly publishers from all over Spain.

The profile of the guests includes importers, distributors, booksellers, rights buyers, as well as heads of public bodies and libraries, literary agents, university professors, publishers, and journalists. This year, more than 600 professionals from 63 countries have been selected, mainly from the two geographical areas that account for the bulk of exports: Europe (29 countries) and Latin America (21 countries), as well as the U.S. and Canada. Buyers have also been selected from 10 other preferential markets such as Australia, China, South Korea, Egypt, Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Israel, Japan, Morocco, Singapore, Taiwan, and Turkey.

In parallel, LIBER is organizing a Prescribers of Priority Interest Program (PICE), focused on librarians, publishing agents, university professors, publishers, journalists, and heads of public bodies, which will bring to Madrid 55 book professionals from more than 29 countries around the world with the capacity to prescribe, make decisions and/or purchase Spanish books.

LIBER 2023 also includes a Reverse Mission of State Librarians, organized by ICEX in collaboration with the Economic and Commercial Office of Spain in Miami and the FGEE itself, through which more than 30 people are responsible for deciding or prescribing purchases of Spanish-language books in public libraries in the United States have been invited.

The call for the Buyers Program, the Prescribers of Priority Interest Program (PICE), and the U.S. Librarians Program in Liber 2023 is possible thanks to the collaboration of the Ministry of Culture and Sport; the Economic and Commercial Offices Abroad of the Secretariat of State for Trade; ICEX Spain Export and Investment; the Spanish Center for Reprographic Rights (CEDRO) and Acción Cultural Española (AC/E) and the Community of Madrid.

In 2021 (the latest year with an available report) the value of foreign sales in the book sector was 388.90 million euros, according to data from the Association of Spanish Book Chambers. Of these, 345.02 million euros corresponded to publishing products. The main countries to which Spanish exports were directed were Mexico, France, Argentina, Italy, Portugal, the UK, Chile, and the USA, among others.

Text and photo: IFEMA