Planeta's English Debut

Spanish publisher with office in Miami offers English-language titles on Latin America and Spain

By Karen Holt -- Críticas, 9/1/2004

Spain's largest publisher, Planeta, is launching its first English-language line this fall in an attempt to prevent its A-list authors from being lured away by U.S. publishers that offer English and Spanish coeditions.

"If they can go to one of the big English publishers and have it done simultaneously in Spanish, it's very appealing," says Marla Norman, Planeta's U.S. sales director. The initial list will feature four nonfiction books, all previously published in Spanish by Planeta. Starting in 2005, Planeta expects to release about 25 titles in English each year, including a mix of nonfiction and fiction. Most will be translations, though some will be original English titles that in some way reflect Latino culture.

The move mirrors what major English-language publishers such as HarperCollins, with its Rayo imprint, and Random House, which has begun assertively publishing in Spanish across its imprints, are doing to capture readers traditionally served by Planeta. The best example yet happened in August, when Knopf released Mi vida, the Spanish-language version of Bill Clinton's memoir, My Life, in a record-breaking 100,000-copy printing.

The expansion to English-language publishing is an opportunity for Planeta to play on a much larger field, with initial print runs that far exceed the four-figure printings that are typical for the publisher. For example, one of its first English-language releases, Aznar: Eight Years as Head of State (José María Aznar: Ocho años de gobierno), translated by Angela Swafford, is getting a 20,000-copy first printing. But in Spanish, the memoir by Spain's former prime minister José María Aznar has only 1,000 copies in print.

"The English line would appeal to those who can't necessarily read Spanish but might be interested in the topic," says Cheryll Blebins, general manager of Bowlin's Mesilla Book Center in Mesilla, NM. Even bilingual readers who could choose between the two languages often are more comfortable in English, says Raquel Roque, co-owner of Downtown Book Center in Miami. "There's stuff that Planeta publishes in Spanish that I would prefer to read in English."

Other titles on the fall English-language list are also getting printings of 20,000 to 30,000 to start. Among them is Jorge Luis Borges: Autobiography/Autobiografía, a slim volume based on an article Borges wrote for the New Yorker in 1970. The original work and a Spanish translation are bound together. Also on the list is Gustavo Cisneros: The Pioneer (Gustavo Cisneros: Un empresario global) by Pablo Bachelet, with a prolog by Carlos Fuentes, translated by Edith Grossman. Cisneros is a Venezuelan billionaire media mogul with business interests throughout Latin America and the United States. "He has all the right connections for a high-profile promotional campaign, and he's willing to put his own fortune into marketing the book," Norman says.

Finally, there's Gabo and Fidel: Portrait of a Friendship (Gabo y Fidel: El paisaje de una amistad) by Angel Esteban and Stephanie Panichelli, translated by Tomas Von Hartz. The book examines the controversial friendship between the Cuban dictator and one of Latin America's most honored writers. "That book is going to surprise a lot of people because it might have an even longer life in English than in Spanish," Roque says. "Everybody loves García Márquez as a writer, but for Cuban exiles in Miami, he is not a well-liked political figure. In English I would tend to think the more liberal younger Cubans might be interested in reading about the friendship."

While the potential payoff is big, so are the challenges, as Planeta moves into a market of retailers, reviewers, and journalists who may not be familiar with the Spanish-language publisher. Norman says publicity is the biggest hurdle, and the publisher plans to bring in outside help to navigate the maze of English-language programs and publications. Finding and affording translators is also an issue. While Planeta has a stable of qualified translators in Spain and Latin America to turn English books into Spanish, says Norman, "Here in the States, to go from Spanish to English is very costly."

It will be money well spent if Planeta's new venture succeeds in attracting readers, in part because scoring big sales in English can drive demand for a title in Spanish. "The dual-language versions help support each other," says Norman. "It's just becoming more and more difficult to separate the two."