Books do not reach the public without a distribution plan

Fifteen years ago, the writer Carlos Vásconez had published a book of stories through the Department of Culture of the Municipality of Cuenca. The print run was 1.000, and of that number, 150 were delivered to the author. What happened to the rest of the copies? Vasconez never knew. That story is repeated with several writers in the city: they don't know and they can't find the works that were published by public institutions because the distribution plans were never clear.  

That reality, until now, has not changed much: a few days ago, the director of the Directorate of Culture, Tamara Landívar, told this newspaper that, when she had assumed her position at the end of February 2020, she found 14.108 books that had been edited by previous administrations and had not been distributed.  

Why? According to Landívar, there was no strategy to share the works other than the presentation itself: a person arrives and receives a copy, and the rest of the books end up being stored.  

This is how so many works were accumulated that, to a large extent (12.409 books), in the last year and a half have already been distributed through different channels. 

¨We know that we are still in its infancy in terms of distribution, that we have to put together a better distribution and a network. This is not just a problem here. I just did some studies on publications, and it is a Latin American problem¨, said Verónica Neira, who works at the Publishing House of the University of Azuay.  

In Cuenca, it is not the first time that the problems of book distribution have been discussed: in 2019, the PEN Ecuador Center already analyzed and debated the weaknesses that exist in the city and in Ecuador in terms of the way in which they are distributed. works through public institutions.  

¨We have a notable lack of experience and a publishing company in Ecuador. Saving the Eugenio Espejo campaign, there is no experience. In Cuenca we have several problems¨, said Carlos Vásconez, former president of the House of Culture of Azuay.  

Criterion 

If you don't know who the real audience is and you think of an excessive print run, for the writer Juan Carlos Astudillo, the problem starts from there. Without technical criteria, with the maintenance of the idea of ​​creating works for the sake of creating works, and of a considerable number of impressions, according to Astudillo, then the books are stored.  

Print run is a fundamental factor in knowing what to do with the works published by the city's public institutions. This was also realized by the Publishing House of the University of Azuay, whose works do not exceed 150 impressions.  

In other institutions there are works that reach 1.000 copies, a complex number in the city's publishing market.  

¨There is a need to know the importance of knowing how to reach readers with a coherent and rational print run. On the other hand, with print run you also need a distribution plan. In Cuenca it has been improving somewhat due to the presence of independent editors who have become professional”, said Astudillo.  

Even so, the city and the canton, which will know much less about the works that are published, urgently need a solution so that in the coming years what was known a few days ago will not be repeated again: finding thousands of cardboard-bound books waiting for a reader. (AWM)-(I)