Frances Riddle: How was Hispabooks born?
Ana Pérez Galván: The two co-founders, my partner Gregorio Doval and myself, had worked many years in publishing in Spain, as editors for other presses (and in Gregorio’s case, as a writer himself too) and we had an urge to create a project of our own. The local market had been plunging for several years (and still hasn’t improved much) so it didn’t seem to make sense to set up just another run-of-the-mill independent press. Instead, after a little research we were amazed to see how very few Spanish literary writers got translated to English. Whilst it was easy to spot translations into French, German, Italian, Serbian . . . of the most relevant Spanish authors, translations into English were conspicuous by their absence. It seemed to make sense to focus our efforts, experience, and expertise in Spanish literary fiction in a project aimed at countering this situation, and that’s how we came up with the idea of Hispabooks.
FR: What specific gap in the publishing landscape did Hispabooks set out to fill?
APG: We were set on doing precisely that which US and UK publishers wouldn’t be prone to doing so readily or easily: publish good literary authors regardless of any criterion except that of the quality and value of the books themselves. Generally, publishers, both due to lack of time and lack of proficiency in all languages, commission reading reports from knowledgeable contributors who, along with other factors, will help them make a decision on the books they will contract for publishing. When it comes to literature in translation, this is something ever more unavoidable, for it is very difficult for a publisher to have the level of language understanding required to be able to read all the original texts of the books they are considering. This means that they have to base their decision-making on factors such as recommendations from literary agents or other literary advocates, reading reports and sales of the original editions. As a whole, this is quite a reliable system when it comes to considering commercially successful books—the choices here are often good—but not so much when it comes to assessing works of a highly literary profile. Literary fiction is all about nuance—in words, in meaning, in insight—and that is something that can be difficult to convey in the aforementioned system. Without the publisher having the chance to feel the books directly, there are many cases where they will just pass unnoticed.
At Hispabooks we were set from the beginning on making up for this as much as possible, in order to offer a chance to those works and authors who would be less likely to be considered by a foreign publisher. Since we are Spanish ourselves, and we have deep knowledge of our own literature and of world literature, we were aware that we would be able to have a really independent criterion, and pick just those books we believed had a true literary value and that might resonate with English readers. We don’t commission any reading reports or get obsessed with the latest Spanish fiction releases or debut Spanish authors, we just scan the map thoroughly for good books by contemporary Spanish writers, and go for those which for one reason or other we believe make a difference and are worth the hard work and investment a translation involves.
FR: What have been some of the biggest challenges you’ve faced since starting up in 2011?
APG: In addition to the customary difficulties any start-up has to face anywhere, an upfront challenge for us was getting all those people we engaged with at the beginning to share our faith in the project. More specifically, the first challenge was acquiring rights from relatively renowned literary writers when we were just starting out, having them or their agents hire the rights to a totally new press like us, with a quite innovative and somewhat odd business model. Fortunately, but for a couple of cases, we met a positive and even enthusiastic response. Thanks to all of them.
Funding has also been an ongoing challenge from the start. Publishing in translation is particularly costly, especially if you’re working with some of the top translators, where the fees can add up to really high sums and half of it has to be paid in advance. It takes around 18 months to publish an average novel of about 300 pages, and once it is out, a few more months before seeing any returns. To make it simple, when it comes to publishing in translation, it can take up to two years from the time you hire rights (and, with the advance, start paying money) till you see any income coming from it. It is an ongoing challenge for all publishers, but when you’re just starting out and you don’t even have sales to help out with cash flow, more than a challenge, it almost takes a kind of miracle to move on. Grants are a big help in this area, but our particular profile has also made this a bit difficult for us. We cannot apply for the grants the US and UK institutions offer, because they are generally for local publishers and in Spain the grants offered by the government also have their particular requirements. To begin with, most of them are for companies that have been running for at least 2 years, so, at the beginning, we weren’t able to ask for any. Then publishing grants are only for works published in any of the 4 Spanish co-official languages (Castilian, Galician, Catalan, and Basque), so though our works are by Spanish authors, since we’re publishing in English we cannot apply for those grants. Luckily not all is lost, for there is a translation strand which we are eligible for, and it’s now been two years in a row that we’ve received a little help there from the Ministerio de Cultura. We were also awarded a nice translation grant this summer from the European Union.
Another big challenge was getting the best distribution possible. We began with a limited online and print-on-demand distribution with Ingram and finally last year we signed two great trade distribution agreements—one with Central Books for UK and Ireland and another one with Consortium Book Sales and Distribution for US and Canada. Consortium also does digital distribution for all our books through their comprehensive Constellation program. They do a really awesome job. And now our biggest challenge is to get sales to grow and build gradually.
FR: What do you count as Hispabooks’s biggest successes?
APG: I’d just say having been resilient enough to come all the way up to here and put out 20 Spanish literary fiction books that English readers can now enjoy hopefully as much as we have. For us, our biggest achievement is having put a series of authors “on the map” of world literature in English translation, who, we believe, are really worthy of recognition: Marcos Giralt Torrente, Andrés Barba . . . their participation in several international literary festivals and their works being longlisted in several prestigious literary prizes support this.
FR: What are the advantages and disadvantages offered by your location in Spain as a publisher of books in English?
APG: The main advantage is that we are directly in contact with the raw material we’re working with and have direct access to it. Nowadays, with online shops, you can practically get any book anywhere—shipping takes a matter of days—and getting digital files from literary agents or authors is immediate and something any publisher can do, wherever they are based. However, as I mentioned before, in addition to that, if we don’t fancy going through an agent and the whole request process, we can just go to the nearest library or bookshop and get the book we’re interested in and start reading it on the spot. That makes our decision-making really speedy.
On the other hand, being Madrid-based, has of course its disadvantages: we don’t have any staff in the markets where our books are sold, so we don’t have an ongoing and direct relationship with the booksellers and media editors other publishers can engage with more readily. And in terms of publicity, taking an author abroad for a presentation or a little tour, is generally impossible. There are institutions that help fund these events, but they usually have low budgets and don’t cover the high costs that taking an author on a several days’ trip abroad involves.
FR: Are you optimistic about the future of literature in translation to English?
APG: You bet, if not we wouldn’t have set this up! In the last years we’ve seen many new independent presses specialized in literature in translation to English which seem to be doing well enough to keep going. The more of us there are, the more readers we’ll engage in reading literature in translation, which is nothing more than just reading good books!
FR: Can you talk about some of the forthcoming titles we can expect to see soon from Hispabooks?
APG: We have just released The Same City, by Luisgé Martín (translated by Tomasz Dukanovich) a short, fast-paced novel on mid-life crisis which can resonate with a large audience; next month we are publishing August, October, a coming-of-age novel by Andrés Barba (translated by Lisa Dillman) one of the most powerful Spanish writers nowadays who focuses, nonetheless, with sharp insight, on very adult issues such as solitude and forgiveness. None So Blind, by J.A. González Sainz (translated by Harold Augenbraum and Cecilia Ross) already published in the UK, will come out in January in the US. It is a beautiful tale on values and sense of belonging which is particularly relevant in the light of all political and religious conflicts going on now worldwide. We also have really big titles for the spring-summer 2016 season such as A Bad End, by Fernando Royuela (translated by Peter Bush), quite a raw novel with a very Spanish taste and bitter sense of humor following the path of the Spanish picaresque; and They Were Coming For Him, by Berta Vias Mahou (translated by Cecilia Ross), a novel focusing on Albert Camus’ and his ill-fated death. Escape Attempt, by Miguel Ángel Hernández (translated by Rhett McNeil) is also an awesome novel by this debut author, who is a renowned Spanish contemporary arts professor, reflecting on ethics in contemporary art.
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