Publishing ecosystem
Public Policies
Policy on reading, books, and libraries
Books are multidimensional objects that bring together a variety of actors in the various phases of their value chain, so that the sector is recognized as an ecosystem, an organic entity involving multiple interactions that allow for its sustainability.
Our public policy for the development of the publishing sector is currently expressed in the National Policy for Reading, Books and Libraries published in 2023 by our Ministry of Culture, Arts, and Heritage and the Executive Secretariat for Books and Reading.
The current National Policy on Reading, Books and Libraries maintains a recognition of the book sector as an ecosystem that has a shared diagnosis of what needs it faces, as well as a common vision regarding how to move forward to address them. This perspective has been reflected in the development of a participatory design process for the policy, maintaining a consistently collaborative effort whose implementation highlights interministerial work and the participation of organized civil society. Thus, at the public level, the policy’s implementation involves not only the Ministry of Cultures, Arts and Heritage (MINCAP), but also the Ministry of Education (Mineduc), the Ministry of Social Development and Family (MDS), the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Minrel), the Ministry of Economy, Development and Tourism, the Ministry of Women and Gender Equality, the Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry General Secretariat of Government, and the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency.
The overall goal of this new roadmap is “to create conditions to ensure that all people can access and participate in the ecosystem of reading, books, and libraries in their regions from a human rights perspective.” It also recognizes five action areas: Reading, Creation, Industry and Internationalization, Bibliographic Heritage, and Legal and Institutional Framework.
The overall goal of this new roadmap is “to create conditions to ensure that all people can access and participate in the ecosystem of reading, books, and libraries in their regions from a human rights perspective.”
Public purchase systems
A significant part of the publishing industry’s sales income corresponds to public sector purchases made by various government agencies, which account for 60-80% of publishers’ sales in a given year.
In this sense, and in line with the National Policy on Books, Reading and Libraries, several annual public procurement processes have been systematized under different ministries, seeking not only to contribute to the development of the local publishing industry, but above all to nurture bibliodiversity and keep the catalogs of the country’s public and school libraries up to date.
Among the most emblematic programs is the annual purchase made by the Ministry of Education for the Learning Resources Center (CRA). This program supplies the school libraries of more than 85% of the country’s public schools. The purchasing process includes market consultations in which publishers present their offerings, following the Ministry of Education’s suggested criteria. Then, with a catalog selected by an evaluation committee, librarians from throughout the country choose the books and generate purchase orders, which are sent to the Ministry of Education for it to make a large purchase from the respective publishers, bookstores, or distributors.
Another important program is the Acquisition of Chilean Authors for public libraries under the auspices of the Ministry of Culture, Arts and Heritage (MINCAP), with the aim of annually updating the supply of books by Chilean authors and making new voices of our country’s literature available to readers. The selection includes books on Arts and Heritage, Basic Sciences, Social Sciences, General Interest, Fiction, Children’s Fiction, Non-Fiction, and Graphic Fiction. Each purchase consists of the acquisition of 300 copies, which are brought to MINCAP and then distributed throughout Chile.
Public funding programs
The development programs in MINCAP’s Book and Reading Fund are organized into two lines: the Chile Creates Scholarships, and the Book and Reading Fund, with various lines of financing. In the period 2018 – 2023, the yearly average of project applications was around 4,100 projects, with a total of 18,000 applications during that period.
In 2011, the Program for the Internationalization of Chilean Books and Authors was created. Its goal is to put together the internationalization component for the promotion of the national industry and its authors, through actions supporting their presence at international events—such as fairs and markets—as well as supporting the national industry and all the actors that make up the Chilean book ecosystem.
The initiative was born from the National Book and Reading Policy (2006-2010), in which the CNLL recognized the need to “Create the conditions for the development of a strong publishing industry, allowing national publishing production to improve and increase in order to meet the nation’s cultural and educational requirements, with adequate conditions of quality, price, and variety, and to ensure the presence of Chilean books in international markets.”
In a survey of 44 publishers that were current beneficiaries of ProChile (2021), 70% of respondents exported their products, most with international sales of less than 10% of their total turnover. The most widely used route in the internationalization of the publishing sector is the exportation of physical books, with the recent addition of digital books. New markets are also reached through copublishing or rights sales.
The most widely used commercial instrument is international fairs, both the traditional circuits and those developed by and for independent publishers, where there are more opportunities for incipient creators and small businesses ProChile, (2022).
Meanwhile, with the aim of fostering the translation industry in Chile and boosting the publishing market, the Translation Support Line financed a total of 220 projects between 2015 and 2020, with a total budget of CLP 553,351,385.
In recent years, Corfo has carried out a prefeasibility study on merging the databases of the Legal Deposit, ISBN records, and the Intellectual Rights Department of the Heritage Service, in addition to a market study on potential users of a catalog consolidating the current active publishing output in Chile and making this information available to national and international users.
Translation support program for foreign publishers
The Translation Support Program for Foreign Publishers promotes translation, with the goal of expanding our country’s reach and international presence. The program was introduced with its current structure in 2017 as part of the DIRAC Contest of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, and is governed by specific selection criteria. Only foreign publishers can apply, and as of 2023, publishers can direct access the platform directly in order to facilitate the process.
While until 2023 the subsidy was intended only to finance translation services, as of the 2024 call for proposals, funding for printing services has been incorporated, with the goal of promoting projects of children’s and young adult literature and comics. With the same aim, the 2024 call will allow projects in which a Chilean and a foreign author share copyright, which is very common in illustrated books.
Works may be fiction or non-fiction, and fall into various literary genres such as novels, short stories, poetry, essays, children’s and young people’s literature, graphic novel, memoir writings (including letters, chronicles, autobiographies, biographies) by classic and contemporary authors, history, philosophy, drama, with themes that are representative of the national identity. They can also be published in physical, digital, and audio book formats.
