On November 13, the students of the Degrees in Literature and Creative Writing (LEC) and in HispanicPhilology of the School of Philosophy and Letters of the University of Navarra attended the second session of the cycle "The market publishing house in times of post covid", given by Ana Gallego, professor of Hispanic American Literature at the University of Granada. In her speech, she presented to the students "The values of independent publishing in the 21st century", 10 features to measure the independence of a publishing house and that emerged in the framework of the project ECOEDIT, of the University of Granada:

1.- Line publishing house. As Gallego pointed out, the Catalog of an independent publishing house must be clearly defined, based on certain aesthetic, cultural or political premises, which crystallizes an autonomous project of symbolic capital in the background. In this sense, he assured that "the big groups have a very diffuse publishing house line" and defended that "the book is not only a merchandise, but a common good".

2.- Publication of "minor" literary genres. The speaker pointed out that genres such as poetry, theater, essay or short stories "are areas that have been abandoned by large groups" and encouraged students to "bet on the publication of these minor genres, because it implies a commitment to bibliodiversity and is a sign of a sustainable economic internship ". As an example, he mentioned the publishing house "Páginas de Espuma", whose promoter, Juan Casamayor, was the previous speaker of this cycle.

Publication of works by women writers (at least 40%). Gallegó assured that this indicator "seemed fundamental in our study", and affirmed that "the visibility of works by women writers, previously neglected in the literary field, is a political and economic gesture that materializes a committed and inclusive vision of work publishing house ".

Publication of new authors, at least 30%. In this sense, the speaker defended the need to "flee from the fashions of the moment" and pointed out that "independent publishers are the ones who are publishing unpublished writers, and this is a value, because if these independent publishers did not exist, these authors would be doomed to self-publishing".

Publication of translations, at least 30%. "Independent publishers are making the greatest economic efforts in the translation of quality literary works," said Gallego. "This exercise means not only a commitment to cultural dialogue between the languages of the world, but also the preservation of the linguistic richness of our own language, since local translations propose alternative regional models to the translation to Spanish of Spain imposed by the large groups". These groups, he added, "publish mainly in the large hegemonic languages".

To guarantee a truly independent Catalog , Gallego defended the need for small or medium-sized private capital, at least 50%. "You can't have a policy behind you that tells you what you can publish and what you can't."

7.- A self-managed/alternative distribution is, according to Ana Gallego, a model of management that prevails in the independent publishing houses, "because it is a mechanism that allows to have more control over the copies, to avoid stocks and sales losses, to which the model of the big distribution companies agrees".

Distribution abroad through other independent publishers. In view of the complexity and the logistical and economic effort involved in international distribution for small and medium-sized publishers, Gallegó shared the experience of some of them, "which are implementing practices that are producing good results, such as exporting copies with exclusive distributors or printing in other countries.

9.- As a regular internship of independent publishers, Ana Gallego pointed out their participation in book fairs or in publishers' associations, "where experiences are exchanged, strategies of resistance are tested and alliances are generated that help survival and value the dissemination capacity, cooperation and solidarity of some of these small and medium-sized companies".

Visibility in social networks. In contrast to the internship of the large publishing groups "that have paid for extraordinary campaigns in the cultural press, television and other channels", Gallego assured that independent publishers "live off the free use of social networks, especially Twitter, which is used by more than 90% of independent publishers in Spain and Latin America".

Ana Gallego, in a moment of the session

After addressing the 10 material and immaterial values that make possible the independence of a publishing house, Gallego shared some results of the project ECOEDIT and assured that "of a total of 297 publishers that we have on the platform, only one meets these 10 values: Índole Editores (El Salvador)". He also pointed out that, according to ECOEDIT, "Ibero-American publishing as a whole meets the average of 6.53 values" and that "the area with the most ecological publishers is Argentina, without a doubt".

On the other hand, he addressed the three reasons for the proliferation of this independent publishing model in the 21st century, alluding to development of simple and inexpensive technological means; to the economic crisis, which boosted this cultural business subject as a form of self-employment; and to the short-term strategies deadline of the big groups, which led to a neglect of less profitable market segments, such as novels or minor genres. "With all this I don't want to say that the independents are the good guys and the big ones are the bad guys, but now the big ones act in a subsidiary way to the small ones", he concluded.

Ana Gallego is full professor of Hispanic American Literature at the University of Granada. She has been a visiting researcher at the universities of California (Los Angeles), Princeton, Paris-Sorbonne, Buenos Aires and Yale. Among her lines of research are the relations between recent literature and the market.