The Argentine publishing sector is recognized in Latin America for its diverse and quality production. Despite being the country with the highest inflation in the region (211.4%), it has a network of more than 1,500 bookstores, of which 70% are independent. It has an average of 3.43 bookstores per one hundred thousand inhabitants, three times the number in countries like Brazil or Mexico. “The Argentine editor is a resilient editor,” Juan Pampín, one of the heads of the Corregidor publishing house and president of the Argentine Book Chamber (CAL), assures La Vanguardia. “Our company is 53 years old, it was created by my father, and today we continue it with my two sisters.”
The Pampín family publishing house went through numerous economic crises throughout its history. “The Rodrigazo in 1975, the corralito in 2001, the recent covid pandemic; We always try to find a way, with a greater or lesser number of publications, here we are.” After all, “without books there is no future,” Manuel Pampín, Juan's father and founder of Corregidor, used to say. However, in the “new Argentina”, chaired by the far-right Javier Milei, an unprecedented threat looms over the publishing landscape, which could trigger the definitive closure of an industry that has survived almost everything.
Last week the debate on the omnibus law began in Congress: Bases and starting points for the freedom of Argentines. A set of regulations with which Milei intends, among numerous extreme measures, to repeal the book activity law, which “was an agreement between the three basic legs of the industry, which are booksellers, publishers and distributors,” explains Juan Pampín. Enacted in November 2001, the regulations provide that “every book publisher, importer or representative must establish a uniform retail price (RPP) or final consumer price for the books they publish or import.” In this way, the value of the book is the same at all points of sale, regardless of geographical location or whether it is an independent bookstore or a mass-sale chain. It allows smaller bookstores and publishers to compete with the major labels.
This is a law similar to the one that, in countries like Spain or France, imposes a single price for book products. According to a report carried out by CAL, since its creation, publications in Argentina have increased by 200% and the number of publishers has tripled. “It is a law that works. In countries like Colombia or Mexico they want to replicate it, when we go to fairs they ask us to present on the topic.” Its abolition, Pampín fears, puts bibliodiversity and the survival of small and medium-sized companies in the sector in great danger. “It transforms the market into what I call gray bookstores, where the offer is gray due to its uniformity and standardization, reduced to fashionable books.”
The elimination of a regulation without evaluating its possible consequences “is a typical neoliberal attitude, where they see a regulation, they throw a grenade, then they decide if it made sense to throw it or not,” says Fernando Fagnani, who has been in the publishing industry for more than 30 years. and currently works as general manager of the Edhasa Argentina label.
“There have been repeated economic crises, what there has never been was an attempt to modify a law that works perfectly, that costs the State absolutely nothing and that basically all it does is protect smaller bookstores and publishers” . Supporters of repealing the fixed book price law argue that it will benefit readers because prices will drop. According to Fagnani, “assuming that for the reader the only benefit is economic, which is also not true, that benefit is short. "It lasts as long as the large chains need to keep a majority share of the market." It is enough to observe the experiences on the international scene, such as the abusive discounts of Amazon in the United States (a company that coincidentally would be close to landing in Argentina) or the Waterstones bookstores in the United Kingdom. There, after Margaret Thatcher's government repealed the Net Book Agreement, more than 500 bookstores closed in one year.
Last week, while Congress debated Milei's omnibus law, a cultural cacerolazo resonated in different parts of the country. Laura Forni, owner of the small bookstore El Tren Nocturno and secretary of the Argentine Chamber of Independent Bookstores (CALI), an organization created just a month ago, was present there. “This year, books increased more than ever, but it has to do with the cost of paper,” explains Forni. Traditionally, the price of paper in Argentina was between 30% and 35% of the industrial cost of the book. Today it far exceeds 50%. The country's paper companies, which operate as an oligopoly, are making more profits than any other player in the book industry chain. “If the law is repealed and prices are released, those who have greater financial backing will be able to make large discounts and this will affect independent publishers who do not have the ability to compete.” Faced with the difficult economic outlook, when addressing the possibility of closing her bookstore, Laura Forni comments: “It's something I prefer not to think about now. It constitutes a very possible risk.”
Nora Galia founded the Letras del Sur publishing house ten years ago. “We differentiate ourselves by the diversity of our readers, because we publish emerging authors and themes and because we have a presence in medium and small bookstores and in alternative distribution channels.” It is those points of sale that, Galia argues, offer a more specialized and diverse catalogue. "Cultural managers and especially editors are used to working in scenarios with a certain degree of uncertainty, but this situation, which seems like fiction, is absolutely destructive." Starting in August 2023, devaluation and inflation in Argentina caused prices to increase by more than 200%. “As a consequence, we had to rethink our semi-annual publication plan, reduce circulations and generate new agreements with distributors and printers.” The repeal of the law, according to Galia, would be “the final blow to an industry that has been reeling for almost a decade.”
After being elected president, Milei stated in his winning speech that in 35 years Argentina will regain its status as a world power. “Today the impoverishing model of the omnipresent State, which only benefits some, ends.” According to the president's perspective, where the book is considered simply a commodity, it must be governed by the laws of the market. If the activity is not profitable, then it is suggested to produce something that is. “Literature does not have to be profitable, it is useful and necessary,” argues the Argentine writer Franco Chiaravalloti. "It helps to record an era, we know more about the Spanish golden age from Don Quixote than from history books." The Argentine book industry is preparing to resist what could be one of its strongest blows. As the author Ernesto Sábato (1911-2011) expressed: “The admirable thing is that man continues to fight and create beauty in the midst of a barbaric and hostile world.”
