Why doesn't Amazon have a Spanish site?

Wondering how the Spanish translation of Lend Me Your Ears was doing, I thought I'd have a look at Amazon Spain.

To my astonishment, I discovered that it doesn't exist, even though Spanish is the 3rd most widely spoken language in the world.

But, there are Amazon sites in Japanese (10th most widely spoken) and German (11th most widely spoken), not to mention three in English (UK, USA, Canada) and Amazon China.

I'm not as worried about Amazon missing such a major market opportunity as I am about the fact that Spanish speakers don't have access to books translated from English into Spanish.

I know from emails and comments on the blog that there are some regular Spanish speaking visitors.

They might like to know that the Spanish edition of Lend Me Your Ears is published as Claves para hablar en público: Todo lo que necesita saber sobre cómo pronunciar discursos y hacer presentaciones, further details of which are available HERE (from where copies can also be ordered).

10 comments:

Unknown said...

I've wondered this as well.

Is there any similar site to Amazon based in Spain? I've done plenty of google searches but have yet to come across a 'supersite' for Spanish book shoppers, although I found DVDgo was quite good for films (was looking for the Spanish releases with Spanish subtitles and not English).

Anonymous said...

Well, I have been wondering the same.The Spanish market is broad..and whoever doesn`t think big and translate their websites, books, songs, videos, etc...is definitely missing out on a big market. I`m an official translator, by the way. I have translated books, songs, articles, information brochures, anything you name it I`ve translated it..including website pages...so if any of you know how to contact those morons at amazon...let me know. My name is Liza...contact me at: mejiazacapa@yahoo.com. Amazon should be in spanish soon!!!

Anonymous said...

In Spain we have http://www.casadellibro.com/
Fnac.es also has a lot of books.
Good luck

Anonymous said...

Well, I am from Spain and, as far as I know, Amazon Spain does not exist because the Spanish book market is "closed". Book prices are regulated by law and book sellers cannot offer a discount greater than 5%, which leaves little space for Amazon and their aggresive discount policy. Also, I'm not sure about the current legal status of used books sales in Spain, but as far as I know the SGAE (Spanish authors' society) strongly opposes it. Perhaps this is also influencing Amazon, if it would not be possible for them to work with resellers in Spain.

IMHO this is a lousy policy, but it doesn't look like it's going to change...

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