María Teresa Carbano: "The publishing sector has clearly lost a third of its market"

She is the first woman to hold the presidency of the The book foundation in 44 years. The election was held in September and was pbaded unanimously by the 14 members of the board of directors.

A day in its debut in charge of the Book Fair in its 45th edition María Teresa Carbano He spoke with Infobae culture on the crisis of the sector and on the expectations for one of the most striking events of the culture of Buenos Aires.

– How is the industry right now?

-We have just had a very complicated 2018 and we are coming out of a worse first quarter of 2019. I want to clarify that we are talking with numbers, there is no biased interpretation. The Book Chamber administers the International ISBN Agency. What is seen through the numbers is that production in 2018 was 43,000,000 copies and in 2017 84,000,000. Nearly 50% less production.

– What about sales?

-Sales is always more difficult than can give you a precise figure because we can not measure it through the ISBN. The sale can be given by different publishers and there is sometimes a reluctance to give absolutely accurate data. We are talking about everything we checked between 30 and 35% less. The publishing sector has clearly lost a third of its market.

– And you consider that this has to do with the economic crisis, with which people have less time and less reading, or with migration to other reading formats?

-There is something very concrete about digital reading. The number of books published in digital format remains variable over the last five or six years, in the order of 17.19%. In 2018, it was 19%. The number of editions in digital format has not changed.

– So you can not attribute the decline in production from one increase to another.

No And this percentage is similar to that of other ISBN agencies in the region. We are talking about the fact that "people have less time": it is impossible to define because there is no measure in terms of the time available. But what we can see is good, people are migrating to other entertainment, and more clearly to the series, we are talking about Netflix or guys tablets. But the percentage is really insignificant compared to this loss of a third of the market.

-So they attribute it mainly to the economic crisis.

-Mostly it's the economic crisis for a very simple reason, if food consumption has decreased, it is logical that the consumption of books decreases, because? because it is not something of first necessity. That's what we see.

– This crisis we are talking about this year is reflected in something at the Fair?

-We had a decrease of about 8% in terms of registrations, so compared to the figures of the crisis, this is not too important.

-Many numbers come within the framework of the invited city which is this year Barcelona.

-Yes, but in addition there are many figures that are made by publishers and there are many who also come from the same Foundation. In this aspect: by bringing visitors, buyers, figures, we have absolutely nothing spared.

Although the show is open to the public at 25 hours, exhibitors expect a lot of what is happening the days before with business days.

– Excellent wait. Because? The professional days are the place of production of the companies of the sector since all the exhibitors are accompanied by their catalogs live, all the stands are prepared and we receive visitors from the interior of the country, booksellers and distributors, as well as foreign visitors . To foreign visitors, the Foundation pays three nights of hotel. And for the national visitors, a bag of money for your expenses here in Buenos Aires these three days of professional days. This year, as was the case last year and the year before, and we thank the Secretariat for the culture of the nation, we receive their help with a sum of money that allows us to pay the plane ticket for national visitors who are more than X kilometers

-What references will the government be this year at the inauguration?

-Invite are the president, the head of the city government, the secretary of culture of the nation, the minister of culture of the city. The Minister of Culture of the City, Enrique Avogadro, and the Secretary of Culture of the Nation, Pablo Avelluto, will certainly not miss. They will surely talk too.

– It was very intense what was experienced last year in the escraches at the inauguration.

– They asked for something in particular so that it does not repeat itself?

-They did not ask us in particular, they are extremely respectful of the fact that the Book Fair is an event fully supported by the private sector. We are the ones who raised the issue and we said that during the law we were going to have attention that was not before, but that there had never been any. of situation in which it was possible to prevent the use of the word. Here is something very important: the act that we ask at that time in our house, during the twenty-one days of the Fair, the fairground is our home. It's not good that you come to my house, where I organized a number with certain characteristics, and that you avoided talking to my guests, because they did not stop being my guests. We spoke immediately, we said we had repudiated what had happened. This has nothing to do with censorship, it makes sense: if I invite officials to talk, they can talk. Now, the presence of Rita Segato is added to this opening ceremony.

-The first time that a woman chairs the Foundation, Rita Segato will open the fair. It is a very important historical moment that women live.

-No doubt, what moves us with Rita Segato is that she is a voice not only of feminism because she is an anthropologist who has dealt with other issues, but it is a feminist voice that seeks plurality, which does not seek confrontation. This is very important when it is said that men are also victims of patriarchy. She makes the center more than in feminism or masculinity or machismo, the emphasis puts it in patriarchy and says that men are also victims of pressures that they exert from a patriarchal culture. What he is looking for is that there is a pluralism between men and women, usually say the discussions between friends. This is how we understand the presence of Rita. When we made him agree to be the only one to deliver the inaugural speech, we immediately started receiving a flood of applications for participation in the act. The entrance to the opening ceremony is by invitation. Someone may want to see in this what constitutes an obstacle compared to what happened last year. No, it is that the room has an ability.

– This has to do with the amount of listening of Rita Segato and not with the preservation to the officials, you want to highlight?

-Exactly, it's a matter of room size.

-Something very interesting, which was one of the novelties of last year and a celebration that is repeated, is the space for diversity "Pride and Prejudice".

-It worked very well. We are happy to have thought about it. The choice of name was a joint election of the board of directors. It was a total success, the physical space had its own auditorium where there were many lectures, many debates and presentations, and a library on its own; all that the public found there had to do with the LGBT problem. It was so good that this year, very quickly, all the exhibitors who have a book, a material that refers to the theme, have already sent it. So we will have a second year probably more success. We have an institutional and cultural director who is Oche Califa, these are constantly diving trends. Three or four years ago, he saw the whole subject of the youth movement …

-There are several booktubers.

-We invite everyone to visit the page of the Foundation because the program is very comprehensive and it is impossible to name everything that exists, according to the interest of each. I would like to emphasize that this is the first year of a new space dedicated to people with disabilities.

– Yes, with functional physical disability, the question of the inclusion of the different in this type of difference. We think it's great that the fair can be a space beyond book sales, because it's very important, the fair has more than a thousand events in the last twenty days. Then, beyond what is strictly part of book sales, there is a cultural festival where you can participate not only in everything for which you have a taste, but also in everything that challenges you. Because, all of a sudden, the question of inclusion is something that seems to be a lot the most logical, the most natural, but one that challenges it to something to include. As part of the fair, we must also mobilize a little things that some people make noise and may have the opportunity to approach. Because one of the things the Fair has to do with what can be a bookstore is that there are many people attending the Book Fair who do not often visit bookstores.

-But he attends the event itself, at the talks.

-How can I approach children to read today?

-One of the first things that are said is that children who see parents reading, they see that there are books at home, that's one way they approach naturally reading. What's true, if every night, mom or dad are sleeping with them and reading a story, they come to the reading. Today, I think that, as you have said, as a mother, the tablet, the cell phone and the book must live together. And boys when they reach adolescence, and we see it in the youth movement, when they talk about reading, they talk about physical books, and yet they are digital natives. The way to approach children in reading is not to force them to read, but to show them that reading is a miracleat.

– Does the reader read in the subway or during his vacation?

-D'accord, agree. Reading in the subway, it's knowing that one is in the subway, knowing that one shares a community and collective experience while traveling from one place to another, but that the We are here with another subject, with his own theme. During the holidays, well, it would probably be good to read all year, but if you read during the holidays, welcome.

-Do you want to leave a book?

-Because I do not like it? This has to do with one aspect of each person's personality. It has to do with how we deal with the challenges. Do not fall into the easy, go beyond. I had an experience yesterday, I tell you it was the same, he said: "I leave it here, I close it, I leave it here". "No, no, no, I have to know, I need to know to what end he gives her, where he wants to go." I do not doubt that there are people who say, "No, no, I can not do that". However, all those who continue are as they say: "I do not allow myself to abandon a book".