01 May Spain’s Covid-19 Lockdown and the Impact on Its Publishing Industry (Podcast #4)
Episode #4 – Spain’s Strict Covid-19 Lockdown and the Impact on Its Publishing Industry
By Marleen Seegers, Co-Founder of 2 Seas Agency and Host of The Make Books Travel Podcast
May 1, 2020
Marina Penalva © Henrik Martensson
Welcome to the fourth episode of the Make Books Travel podcast!
Today I’m joined by Marina Penalva, a literary agent at Casanovas & Lynch Literary Agency in Barcelona, Spain.
Marina and I have known each other for many years — in fact we couldn’t even remember when it was exactly that we first met. It seems like she’s just always been around, and has traveled extensively to international book fairs and literary festivals.
Spain has sadly been one of the hardest-hit countries during the pandemic so far, and I wanted to sit down with her to get an insider’s look into the current situation of the Spanish publishing industry in light of the strict lockdown measures taken by the Spanish government.
Here are some of the questions I asked Marina:
- What is the situation in Spain currently, in light of the Covid-19 pandemic? Is the total lockdown slowly getting lifted?
- Bookstores have been closed for over a month now, is there any sense of when they will be able to open again?
- What was the state of the Spanish publishing market before the start of the pandemic?
- Since the start of the lockdown, has the Spanish publishing world been on a standstill?
- What has happened since the start of the pandemic in terms of book sales?
- Which initiatives, if any, have been taken by authors, publishing houses, booksellers, agents and other publishing professionals since the start of the pandemic in order to keep their heads above the water and mitigate economic losses?
Thank you for listening, and enjoy!
PS: If you are a publishing professional and are interested in participating in a new podcast episode, let us know!
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