The hybrid book market, paper vs. digital text, by Germán Gullón

Ten years ago, the title of this talk would have been unthinkable, then the advent of the digital text seemed unstoppable. Disenchantment soon hit private publishers, while multinational groups embraced it, often bowing to Amazon's demands. Literature has been the victim because professionalised literature, aimed at the reader-consumer, is the only one that sells in large quantities. The bookshops in the department stores have given up selling good books; fortunately, a form of the hybrid market has been born, where the paper book competes with the digital book and can survive. We will also examine the nascent Amazon digital platforms that are beginning to proliferate in universities, with strong support from the banks. The new book threat wants to displace any private initiative from the market.

Germán Gullón is Emeritus Professor of Spanish Literature at the University of Amsterdam. He is also a literary critic for El Cultural in the newspaper El Mundo.  His latest books of essays are Los mercaderes en templo de la literatura (2004), La modernidad silenciada: La cultura española en torno a 1900 (2006), and La novela de Galdós. El presente como materia literaria (2014), Galdós, maestro de las letras españolas modernas. Biografía. (2020), and Emilia Pardo Bazán, el tiempo de la mujer. Biografía (2021).