It seems these days we only think about ebooks. Two Spanish publishing houses, Ediciones B and Planeta, and Spain’s biggest bookseller Casa del Libro, just launched new products, all of them related to the electronic books.

Ediciones B has not only launched last month a new digital imprint, B de Books, but also claims to be “the first e-book publishing venture without DRM encryption”.  In the beginning B de Books will have 300 titles available and will be able to buy online in platforms such as Amazon, Libranda and Apple.  For its part, Planeta has released two new low-priced e-book imprints: Zafiro (for romance) and Scyla (for science fiction, fantasy and horror).

Casa del Libro is currently the e-book market leader in Spain, and launched November 23th its e-reader Tagus, a six-inch screen, Wi-Fi-enabled device, with a copy of the Real Academia Española dictionary.  It also offers cloud storage of an unlimited number of titles for an unlimited time. E-books can be browsed online and read offline on other devices after downloading a free app from Android Market and the Apple App Store. According to Xavi Solà, this release has given access to “the largest Spanish-language book catalogue in the world”.

Since this September Amazon has begun operating in Spain, offering printed titles, before launching the Spanish Kindle. It is also worth mentioning the positioning of Google Books. Luis Collado, director for Spain and Portugal Google Books and Ebooks says “the firm aims to make reading e-books as easy as using email”.

– Almudena Santalices

Sources: ABC / Publishing Perspectives.