Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia is launching an e-book publishing program, “E-books De Vanguardia.” It appears to be the first Spanish newspaper to do so, and the first books are free. Next up are two more books: ¡Adolescente en Casa! (“Teenagers at Home”), a guide for parents living with teenagers, which will sell for €5.99, and another free book, Las 30 Webs Más Relevantes de 2011 (“The 30 Most Important Websites of 2011”), about the most important websites of the year. The content for those titles is taken from ES, La Vanguardia‘s weekly lifestyle magazine.
La Vanguardia is Barcelona’s leading newspaper, and the third largest in Spain.
Amazon (NSDQ: AMZN) launched in Spain in September, and the Kindle Store is expected to arrive there by the end of this year. For now, e-books make up just about 1 percent of book sales in Spain.
Several English-language newspapers have published e-books of varying lengths in recent months, including the Guardian, Boston Globe and Washington Post.
La Vanguardia is starting its program with two free titles. Viaje Al Corazón del Hambre (“Journey to the Heart of Hunger”) is a 69-page collection of previously published reports on the famine in Africa by La Vanguardia reporter Xavier Aldekoa. It is available in both Spanish and Catalan. El Naufragio (“The Wreck”) is a 144-page collection of reports on the defeat of the Socialist government in Barcelona earlier this year by reporter Jaume Aroca, in Spanish. The books are available in EPUB, PDF and MOBI formats.
Posted on November 10, 2011
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