Ministry of Culture accepts request from Frankfurt Book Fair to attend as Guest Country of Honour in 2022

This decision was taken after consulting the Spanish Publishers' Association (Spanish acronym: FGEE) and in agreement with Slovenia and Italy, the countries that will attend as Guest Countries of Honour after Spain in 2023 and 2024, respectively. Spain will be the Guest Country of Honour from 19 to 21 October 2022.

"In these extraordinary times, we are sure that the agreement we have reached to postpone attendance in Frankfurt as Guest Country of Honour until 2022 will create a far better opportunity for the Spanish book sector, increasing international cooperation and solidarity (especially with Slovenia and Italy) that will ensure the publishing industry remains strong after the pandemic", explained the Spanish Minister for Culture and Sport, José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes, in relation to the agreed decision.

"It was an internationally agreed decision with which we also seek to show solidarity with Canada, which should have been Guest of Honour in 2020, and which will also benefit the Spanish publishing sector", said José Manuel Rodríguez Uribes. Canada asked the Frankfurt Book Fair to postpone its invitation until 2021 because the mobility restrictions stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic were going to impede its participation and the organisation of activities.

The Frankfurt Book Fair is the most important event in the non-Spanish-speaking publishing sector given that 80% of all annual copyright contracts in this field worldwide are signed at the event.

Spain boosts the sale of publishing rights at Frankfurt 2020

Spain has designed a plan to convert its featured attendance at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2022 into an opportunity and demonstrate the strength of Spanish culture within the book sector by improving overseas knowledge of Spanish literature in all the official languages of Spain.

To do so, the Ministry of Culture and Sport and the Spanish Cultural Action Agency (Spanish acronym: AC/E) will maintain the planned schedule and boost the sale of publishing copyrights from this year.

In partnership with the Federation of Spanish Publishers' Guilds, the Ministry of Culture and Sport and AC/E have reached an agreement with the IP rights sales platform owned by the Frankfurt Book Fair in order to facilitate the sale of these publishing rights.

It will be possible to upload up to 500 titles on the platform, and participating publishers and literary agents will be promoted. The project is open to all Spanish publishers and agents. The titles section will be included under Spain - Guest in Frankfurt in order to raise the profile of them all and, within this section, each publisher and literary agent will have their own account in order to add highlight titles and all the necessary information.

"More than 80 publishers and agents have already signed up", said Elvira Marco, commissioner of Spain's project at the Frankfurt Book Fair, who stressed that, "under the current circumstances, the online communication of our publishers and titles is essential to fostering the sale of rights and they will have a higher profile grouped together under a single portal for Spain. We are thus developing a three-pronged internationalisation strategy for our literature: digital marketing; support for translation; and support for our publishers and literary agents".

This online initiative will enable Spanish publishers to receive queries and do business 24/7 throughout the year. In turn, buyers will be able to use the platform for free, browse over 300,000 titles with available rights and contact the international rights vendors.

This digital tool will be strengthened with the support for translation being offered by the Ministry of Culture and Sport and AC/E to promote the sale of rights for Spanish titles. In addition to overseas publishers, Spanish publishers and literary agents will also be able to request this support for the translation of their rights sale portfolios.

800,000 euros for new translation support

The sale of rights for Spanish titles will also be promoted through the announcement of funding by the Ministry of Culture and Sport for translation into foreign languages through the Directorate-General of Books and the Promotion of Reading and the AC/E Translation Support Programme specifically created for the Spain Guest of Honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair project that will remain in effect until 2022.

The two rounds of funding will be launched soon, amounting this year to 400,000 euros from the Directorate-General of Books and another 400,000 euros from AC/E.