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Report · Talk at the LIBER 2026 Ágora

The DNA of global success

The 15 genes for selling your books abroad

In 1950 a pit stop took more than a minute. In 2023 it took 1.80 seconds. Nobody found one big trick: hundreds of small improvements added up, each measured to a tenth of a second. Selling books in another country works the same way. This report expands on the talk we gave (in Spanish) at LIBER 2026 and sets out, gene by gene, the data, the sources and what to do tomorrow.

Nicolás Parola

Chief Marketing Officer, publica.la

LIBER 2026 · 29 September 2026 · 15 min read

See the 15 genes Book a meeting

The maths behind the talk

×4.18

Fifteen improvements of 10%, measured and compounded, don’t add up to 150%. They multiply: 1.115 = 4.18.

Number of genes improved by 10%
  • 5 genes improved by 10% multiply sales by 1.61.
  • 10 genes improved by 10% multiply sales by 2.59.
  • 15 genes improved by 10% multiply sales by 4.18.

From the pit lane to the checkout

From over a minute to 1.80 seconds: a 97% cut

Formula 1 got there through hundreds of small improvements, each one measured against the last.

  1. 1950

    60+ s

    The first World Championship season. Around four mechanics in shirtsleeves, with no helmets or fireproof overalls, use mallets to knock off the central nut on each wheel. Cars pit for damage or wear, not for strategy.

  2. 1957

    ≈ 50 s

    Fangio starts the German Grand Prix on half a tank and soft tyres, and pits from the lead on lap 13. A wheel nut goes missing and he rejoins third, 48 seconds behind second place. He still wins, after a legendary comeback, but the strategic stop doesn’t come back for 25 years.

  3. 1982

    ≈ 15 s

    Brabham makes the stop part of the strategy: start on half a tank to run lighter, then refuel mid-race. The tyres are warmed in plywood ovens and the fuel goes in from pressurised tanks made from beer kegs.

  4. 1993

    3.2 s

    Benetton changes all four wheels on Riccardo Patrese’s car in 3.2 seconds at the Belgian Grand Prix, timed by telemetry. It stays the benchmark for years.

  5. 1994–2009

    6–12 s

    Refuelling returns and the hose sets the pace, at up to 12.1 litres a second: a stop lasts as long as the fuel takes to go in.

  6. 2010

    Wheels only

    Refuelling is banned. Only the wheels are left, and the fight over thousandths of a second begins.

  7. 2019

    1.82 s

    Red Bull changes Max Verstappen’s wheels at the Brazilian Grand Prix in 1.82 seconds.

  8. 2023

    1.80 s

    McLaren completes a 1.80-second stop for Lando Norris in Qatar, a Guinness record, with bigger, heavier wheels and some twenty people working in sync.

Thousands of tenths of a second, measured over 73 years, set the record.

Sources: Guinness World Records (2023 and 2024); Formula 1, “Anatomy of a pit stop” (2025); Wikipedia, 1957 German Grand Prix and Brabham BT50; Silodrome, interview with Gordon Murray; RaceFans (2008); F1-Fansite.

The core of the talk

Selling abroad comes down to two things

Behind all fifteen genes are two ideas. If readers see a price in another currency, or can’t pay the way they always do, they don’t buy. And if your book isn’t in the bookshops they use, they never find it.

1

Be in every bookshop they use

Amazon isn’t enough. In Latin America much of the digital market runs through local bookshops, each with its own audience, currency and payment methods.

2

Charge the way the reader pays

Use the reader’s price, currency and payment method. A price converted at today’s exchange rate is not a local price.

The route to a sale abroad

  1. 1 Where to sell Bookshops and marketplaces in each country
  2. 2 How readers find you Portals such as ebooksdepository.com
  3. 3 What to charge A price for each market, not one per region
  4. 4 Which currency Show and charge in the reader’s currency
  5. 5 How you get paid Pix, Mercado Pago, Yape, PSE…

By our estimate these five genes matter most: together they account for more than half the effect of all fifteen. If you have to pick a place to begin, start here.

The full map

The 15 genes at a glance

In the order a sale goes through them: where to sell, what to charge, how readers find you and how you get paid. Each comes with its data, its sources and one concrete action.

Genes 1 to 6

Where to sell

Channels and formats: who you sell to, through which shops and in which format.

Gene 1 · B2C

B2C: selling directly to the reader

Business to consumer: a reader buys a title for themselves, online, in their own country and currency. Every other gene leads here, because each one ends with a reader deciding whether to buy.

That reader is often abroad already: almost a third of digital sales on publica.la go to someone living outside the publisher’s country. There are three ways to reach them, and publishers that sell abroad combine all three rather than picking one.

What to do tomorrow

Combine direct sales, bookshops and marketplaces

of digital sales on publica.la go to a reader outside the publisher’s country
31%
of digital sales on publica.la go to a reader outside the publisher’s country
countries with buyers in the last year
108
countries with buyers in the last year

Direct

Your own shop

The publisher sells from its own online shop and sets the brand, the price and the promotions, dealing directly with every reader.

Third-party sales

Bookshops

Online bookshops in each country sell your catalogue alongside other publishers’, in their own currency and with their own payment methods.

Third-party sales

Marketplaces

Large shops and platforms that gather many publishers’ catalogues in one place, and the shoppers along with them.

Sources: publica.la first-party data, approved digital sales September 2025 to August 2026 with a known buyer country.

Gene 2 · B2B

B2B: selling to institutions

Business to business: libraries, universities, schools and companies license access for their readers. This buyer pays up front, renews every year and buys whole collections rather than single titles.

Their demand for digital keeps growing: ebook and audiobook lending sets new records every year, in Spain and worldwide. Selling to them means solving two problems that selling to readers doesn’t raise: the licensing model, and integration with the institution’s systems.

What to do tomorrow

Offer licensing models and LTI, SAML, IP and EZproxy integration

We walk through it step by step in our webinar on institutional sales (in Spanish). How to sell to institutions

of print book turnover in Spain comes from companies and institutions, including textbooks sold to schools
15.1%
of print book turnover in Spain comes from companies and institutions, including textbooks sold to schools
digital loans on eBiblio, Spain’s public library platform, in 2025 (+16.6%), across 700,736 licences
4.8M
digital loans on eBiblio, Spain’s public library platform, in 2025 (+16.6%), across 700,736 licences
digital loans across OverDrive libraries in 2025 (+10.9%)
820M
digital loans across OverDrive libraries in 2025 (+10.9%)

Challenge 1 · Licensing

  • Concurrent access: how many readers at once
  • Loans by number of uses or by time
  • Pay per loan, or an annual subscription per collection
  • Perpetual purchase with maintenance
  • Tenders and contracts per institution

Challenge 2 · Integration

  • LTI: inside the learning platform
  • SAML / SSO: with the institution’s own login
  • IP: access from the campus network
  • EZproxy: remote access through a proxy
  • MARC records and usage statistics for librarians

Sources: FGEE, Comercio Interior del Libro en España 2025 (preview, June 2026); Spanish Ministry of Culture, eBiblio en cifras 2025; OverDrive (January 2026).

Gene 3 · Direct sales

Sell from your own shop at home and through bookshops abroad

The two channels work together rather than compete. Your own shop covers your home market, where people know you and you have a community, and where keeping the margin and the data pays off. In Spain almost half of digital turnover already comes from a publisher’s own website or platform.

In a new country, nobody is searching for your imprint. That’s where partner bookshops come in. They already have readers there, and each one sets the currency and payment methods for its own market.

What to do tomorrow

Your own shop at home; partner bookshops in every new country

of digital turnover in Spain comes from the publisher’s own website
21.3%
of digital turnover in Spain comes from the publisher’s own website
from a platform the publisher owns
26.4%
from a platform the publisher owns
goes through general retail platforms
47.7%
goes through general retail platforms

What your own shop gives you at home

  • Your brand and your community of readers
  • First-party data on every buyer
  • Launches, pre-orders and promotions on your own calendar
  • Your whole catalogue on sale, without relying on anyone else
Partner bookshops take you to other countries
Country Currency Local payment method
Mexico MXN Mercado Pago
Chile CLP Mercado Pago
Argentina ARS Mercado Pago
Brazil BRL Pix
Colombia COP PSE, Nequi
Peru PEN Yape

Each bookshop sets the price, currency and payment methods for its own market.

Sources: FGEE, Comercio Interior del Libro en España 2025 (preview, June 2026); publica.la.

Gene 4 · Bookshops and marketplaces

Put your book in other shops’ windows

Bookshops that sell other publishers’ catalogues multiply your points of sale without you opening another shop. You sign up once and appear in many shop windows: each bookshop sells your book in its own country and currency, with its own payment methods.

It is also the channel that crosses the most borders. On publica.la one in four reader purchases is a title from another publisher’s catalogue sold by a bookshop, and half of those sales go to readers in another country. From a publisher’s own shop, only 14% do.

What to do tomorrow

Open your catalogue to third-party bookshops

of reader purchases on publica.la are third-party catalogue sold by bookshops
26%
of reader purchases on publica.la are third-party catalogue sold by bookshops
of what third-party bookshops sell goes to readers in another country (14% from the publisher’s own shop)
50%
of what third-party bookshops sell goes to readers in another country (14% from the publisher’s own shop)
Bookshops with the largest catalogues in the ebooksdepository.com directory
Bookshop Country Titles in catalogue
Sanborns Ebooks Mexico 744,551
Bajalibros Latam Latin America 399,809
Bajalibros Argentina Argentina 394,326
Ebooks Librería Antártica Chile 381,889
Bajalibros Colombia Colombia 379,847
Ebooks Librería del GAM Chile 373,176
Bookshop Uruguay Uruguay 360,251
Ebooks Yenny - El Ateneo Argentina 357,111
Ebooks Librería Española Ecuador 345,666
Crisol Ebooks Peru 334,098
Gonvill Ebooks Mexico 329,794
SBS Librerías Argentina 323,133
Bajalibros España Spain 321,587

Sources: publica.la first-party data, approved purchases September 2025 to August 2026; “another country” means a buyer country different from that of the account holding the catalogue. Catalogues: ebooksdepository.com directory, consulted 28 September 2026.

Gene 5 · Subscriptions

Subscriptions reach a different reader and add revenue

Unlimited reading and listening for a monthly fee. A subscriber is a different reader from someone who buys one title at a time: they read more, try new authors and get to the backlist that has left the new-release tables.

For Spanish-language audiobooks, subscription is already the norm. For ebooks it is still a small share of value and, according to Bookwire, it does not cannibalise unit sales: it adds revenue rather than replacing it.

What to do tomorrow

Test a subscription platform with your backlist

of Spanish-language audiobook consumption was through subscription in 2025
89.5%
of Spanish-language audiobook consumption was through subscription in 2025
of the Spanish-language digital market came from subscriptions in 2025 (library lending, 6.7%)
5.6%
of the Spanish-language digital market came from subscriptions in 2025 (library lending, 6.7%)
of turnover on publica.la comes from monthly subscriptions, across 87 shops
20%
of turnover on publica.la comes from monthly subscriptions, across 87 shops

Your own

A subscription in your own shop, with your catalogue, a price for each country and recurring billing.

Platforms

Nextory, Kobo Plus, Storytel and Audible put you in front of their subscribers straight away.

Backlist

Titles that have left the new-release tables find new readers through subscription.

Sources: Bookwire, Spanish Market Report 2026; De Marque, Annual Digital Book Report 2025 (April 2026); publica.la first-party data, approved gross turnover September 2025 to August 2026.

Gene 6 · Formats

Each format has its own price and its own audience

Audio is growing far faster than ebooks and sells for almost twice the price, while print still has the highest price of the three. A title published in all three formats reaches three different readers: one who reads on paper, one who reads on a phone and one who listens while driving.

Spanish-language audio is no longer a market for Spain alone: Spain holds 54% of it, the United States 20% and Mexico 18%, almost ten points more than a year earlier. And abroad, ebooks and audiobooks cost nothing to ship and never go through customs.

What to do tomorrow

Publish your best-selling title as an audiobook

audiobook turnover in Spain in 2025
+53.3%
audiobook turnover in Spain in 2025
Spanish-language audiobook revenue worldwide
+11.5%
Spanish-language audiobook revenue worldwide
Spanish-language ebook revenue worldwide
+1.5%
Spanish-language ebook revenue worldwide
of digital turnover on publica.la is audio, from 1.9% of units
3.2%
of digital turnover on publica.la is audio, from 1.9% of units
Typical price per format, in US dollars
Print
$17.25
Audiobook
$16.52
Ebook
$8.89

Sources: FGEE, Comercio Interior del Libro en España 2025 (preview); Bookwire, Spanish Market Report 2026. Print: average print book price in Spain in 2025 (€15.0, FGEE) at 1.15 USD/EUR. Audio and ebook: medians of publica.la purchases September 2025 to August 2026.

Genes 7 to 9

What to charge

The right price, currency and promotion change from one country to the next.

Gene 7 · Price per country

There is no such thing as a LATAM price

At the median, a reader in Spain pays three times what a reader in Mexico pays for a digital book: 16 dollars against 5. One price for the whole region is too high in some countries and a giveaway in others, so you lose sales where it is high and margin where it is low.

Instead of a regional discount, set a price for each country in its own currency, starting with the markets that already buy from you.

What to do tomorrow

Local prices in the 3 countries that buy from you most

Median price paid for a digital book, by buyer’s country
Buyer’s country Local median Median in US dollars
Spain 14.00 EUR $16.34
Colombia 39,900 COP $10.89
Uruguay 399 UYU $9.99
Chile 8,900 CLP $9.63
United States 8.99 USD $8.99
Argentina 12,699 ARS $8.88
Peru 29.90 PEN $8.82
Brazil 29.90 BRL $5.82
Mexico 90 MXN $5.30

The dollar is misleading: a Big Mac costs almost the same in Mexico (6.27 USD) as in the United States (6.22 USD), although income per head in Mexico is a sixth of the US figure. Set the price by purchasing power, not by the exchange rate.

Sources: publica.la first-party data: approved unit purchases of PDF, EPUB and audio in every shop, September 2025 to August 2026, publishers with 30 or more sales, final price paid including taxes. In the United States and Uruguay a single shop accounts for over 90% of sales. The Economist, Big Mac index (July 2026).

Gene 8 · Local currencies

Show prices in the local currency first, then charge in it

Readers do not buy what they have to convert in their heads. A price in dollars or euros makes them do the maths and distrust the exchange rate their bank will apply.

A currency is not a price. Converting 9.99 dollars into pesos at today’s rate shows the local currency; setting the price at 90 pesos gives you a local price. Both help, but the second is what sells.

What to do tomorrow

Charge in the reader’s currency, don’t just display it

of cross-border shoppers expect to pay in their local currency
94%
of cross-border shoppers expect to pay in their local currency
abandon a purchase if they cannot see prices or pay in their currency
22%
abandon a purchase if they cannot see prices or pay in their currency
more units sold in Mexico in pesos than in dollars in publishers’ own shops
6×
more units sold in Mexico in pesos than in dollars in publishers’ own shops
Units sold in Mexico in publishers’ shops, by the currency charged
In Mexican pesos
3,803
In US dollars
604

Latin American buyers paying in euros made some 1,400 purchases in the year, at a median of €9.70. They do buy, but the conversion adds friction.

Sources: PYMNTS Intelligence and Worldpay (July 2025); Global-e and Censuswide, survey of 9,000 shoppers in 9 markets (2022); publica.la first-party data (September 2025 to August 2026).

Gene 9 · Discounts

Set discounts country by country, not with one global switch

On publica.la only 2% of digital sales carry an active price promotion, and just 1.3% use a partial coupon, so it is a lever that is barely pulled. What matters is the right discount in the right market, not discounting more. 20% off in Peru and nothing off in Spain can work out at the same real price.

Stay within the law. In Spain the fixed book price also covers ebooks (Law 10/2007): a consumer discount cannot exceed 5%, or 10% on Book Day and at book fairs. Selling abroad does not breach it, but every destination has its own rules. Mexico, for example, requires a single registered price.

What to do tomorrow

A promotions calendar for each country, and bundles for each format

of digital sales on publica.la carry a price promotion, at an average of 55% off
2%
of digital sales on publica.la carry a price promotion, at an average of 55% off
use a partial discount coupon
1.3%
use a partial discount coupon
maximum consumer discount in Spain (10% at fairs and on Book Day)
5%
maximum consumer discount in Spain (10% at fairs and on Book Day)

By country

Run promotions where purchasing power calls for them, not in every market at once.

By format

An ebook and audio bundle, or a discounted audiobook for readers who already bought the print edition. It raises the order value instead of lowering it.

By time of year

Every country has its own sales calendar: in 2025 Buen Fin moved 219 billion pesos in Mexico and Hot Sale 42.7 billion, and Chile’s 2026 CyberDay moved 531 million dollars.

To win back

A time-limited coupon for anyone who left their cart tackles the main reason people abandon one: costs they did not expect.

Sources: publica.la first-party data, approved digital sales September 2025 to August 2026; Spanish Law 10/2007 on reading, books and libraries (BOE, consolidated text); Mexico’s Law for the Promotion of Reading and Books (2023 reform); Concanaco; AMVO; Santiago Chamber of Commerce.

Genes 10 to 13

How readers find you

Search engines, AI assistants, advertising and portals: readers have to reach your book before they can buy it.

Gene 10 · SEO

Get found on Google in every country

Search is still the front door. It is no longer enough on its own, but without it there is no GEO: AI assistants read the same pages Google indexes.

In publishing, SEO happens on the book page: one page per title, language and country, showing the price and currency the reader expects and loading fast on a phone.

What to do tomorrow

One page per title, language and country

traditional search volume forecast by Gartner for 2026
−25%
traditional search volume forecast by Gartner for 2026
retail conversion for every 0.1 seconds shaved off mobile load time
+8.4%
retail conversion for every 0.1 seconds shaved off mobile load time

SEO checklist for your catalogue

  • Original blurbs and titles, not copied from the distributor: duplicate content does not rank.
  • One URL per language and country, with hreflang and a sitemap: Google shows each reader the price that applies to them.
  • Structured data (schema.org Book, Offer and Person): price, currency, ISBN and author readable by machines.
  • Mobile speed: the book page loads fast on a mid-range phone.
  • Author and series pages that link to every title.

Since June 2025 Google no longer shows the book-buying rich results (“Book Actions”). Structured data still helps search engines and assistants understand your catalogue, but it no longer produces a buy button on Google.

Sources: Gartner (February 2024); Deloitte and Google, “Milliseconds Make Millions” (2020); Google Search Central (June 2025).

Gene 11 · GEO

When readers ask ChatGPT or Gemini, do you show up?

GEO (generative engine optimisation) is SEO for AI assistants: getting a model to cite your book, your price and your shop when a reader asks it for a recommendation.

Traffic from AI assistants is still small, but it is multiplying year on year and already converts better than the rest: in twelve months it went from converting 38% worse to converting 42% better.

What to do tomorrow

A catalogue readable without JavaScript, with llms.txt

AI-referred traffic to US retail sites between October 2024 and May 2026
+1,324%
AI-referred traffic to US retail sites between October 2024 and May 2026
better conversion from AI-referred traffic (May 2026)
+54%
better conversion from AI-referred traffic (May 2026)
of the top 1,000 websites already publish an llms.txt (0.3% a year earlier)
8.7%
of the top 1,000 websites already publish an llms.txt (0.3% a year earlier)

What an AI model looks at in your shop

  • Price, title, ISBN and buy button visible without JavaScript
  • Complete ONIX metadata and a table of contents that can be quoted
  • llms.txt and access for GPTBot, ClaudeBot and PerplexityBot
  • A presence on the portals assistants consult (gene 13)

Sources: Adobe Digital Insights, via Digital Commerce 360 (June 2026) and TechCrunch (April 2026); Rankability (June 2026).

Gene 12 · Ads

The same budget buys very different reach

Targeted advertising costs something different in every country. With the same budget, a Meta campaign buys about seven times as many impressions in Brazil, Argentina or Colombia as in the United States.

But a cheap impression only helps if the reader can buy: target the countries where you already have a local price, currency and payment method.

What to do tomorrow

Campaigns only where you have local pricing and payment

Median Meta Ads CPM, in US dollars (July 2025 to July 2026)
United States
$23.42
United Kingdom
$17.38
Argentina
$3.62
Brazil
$3.46
Colombia
$3.20

Rules for advertising abroad

  • Only advertise in countries with a local price, currency and payment method live
  • The price in the ad is the price at checkout: in pesos if you charge in pesos
  • One campaign per group of countries with a similar CPM
  • Send the click to the book page, not to the shop’s home page

Sources: Superads, monthly medians across its client accounts, July 2025 to July 2026 (indicative: some months swing by up to five times).

Gene 13 · Portals

Show up where readers already compare prices

ebooksdepository.com brings bookshops and publishers’ shops together and shows who sells each book, where and at what price. It counts as a gene of its own because it works on top of the others: it adds traffic with purchase intent and sends it straight to the shop.

What to do tomorrow

Be on ebooksdepository.com

shops in the directory, from bookshops and publishers
300+
shops in the directory, from bookshops and publishers
countries with shops
20+
countries with shops
titles in the largest catalogue
744k
titles in the largest catalogue
bookshops in 9 countries sell the audiobook of One Hundred Years of Solitude
23
bookshops in 9 countries sell the audiobook of One Hundred Years of Solitude

Why a portal is a gene of its own

  • One book, all its shops: readers see who sells the title in their country and at what price.
  • Traffic with intent: whoever arrives is already looking for that book, and the click goes straight to the purchase.
  • Queryable by AI assistants: the portal opens its catalogue to models, so it helps your GEO too.
  • No extra work: if your book is in the directory’s shops, it already shows up.

Sources: ebooksdepository.com directory, consulted 28 September 2026.

Genes 14 and 15

How you get paid

This is where the sale is decided. Every drop-off you recover is a sale you had already won.

Gene 14 · Checkout

The checkout is where the sale is won or lost

Seven in ten carts are abandoned before payment. That is the market average, and the reasons are almost always ones a shop can fix: costs that appear at the end, compulsory sign-ups, long forms, a missing payment method.

The recipe is well known: the total visible from the start, few fields, a single step, fast loading on mobile and the payment method the reader already uses. And for anyone who still leaves, a recovery email flow.

What to do tomorrow

Visible total, few fields, one step and a recovery email

of carts are abandoned before payment (average of 50 studies)
70%
of carts are abandoned before payment (average of 50 studies)
of orders that have already reached the publica.la payment gateway are not completed
31%
of orders that have already reached the publica.la payment gateway are not completed
of people who receive an abandoned-cart email go on to buy
3.3%
of people who receive an abandoned-cart email go on to buy
in the top 10% of shops by flow performance
7.7%
in the top 10% of shops by flow performance
Why shoppers abandon a checkout (% of US shoppers)
Extra costs
40%
Did not trust the site with card details
19%
Had to create an account
18%
Long or complicated checkout
17%
Could not see the total up front
12%
Not enough payment methods
9%

The two figures measure different moments: Baymard counts from the cart, publica.la from the point the reader has started to pay. Leaving retries aside, 18% of purchase attempts on publica.la are never completed. The recommended way to recover them is a flow of up to three emails, the first within a few hours.

Sources: Baymard Institute (September 2025); publica.la first-party data, book purchase orders at the payment gateway September 2025 to August 2026 (pending, cancelled or failed); Klaviyo, Abandoned Cart Benchmark Report (2024), 143,000 flows; Omnisend (2026).

Gene 15 · Payment methods

Two in three online purchases are no longer paid by card

Digital wallets and instant transfers dominate ecommerce in Latin America. If you only accept cards, you shut out most readers in some countries.

Data from publica.la bears this out country by country: in Brazil almost two in three reader purchases are paid with Pix, and in Argentina with Mercado Pago. The share is still rising: in August 2026 Pix reached 74% in Brazil.

What to do tomorrow

Pix, Mercado Pago, PSE, Nequi, Yape and OXXO

of global ecommerce in 2025 was paid with digital wallets; by card, 31%
56%
of global ecommerce in 2025 was paid with digital wallets; by card, 31%
of Brazilian ecommerce was paid with Pix in 2025
42%
of Brazilian ecommerce was paid with Pix in 2025
of Latin American shoppers would not buy from a shop without their local payment methods
≈ 70%
of Latin American shoppers would not buy from a shop without their local payment methods
Reader purchases paid with local methods through the publica.la gateway (January to August 2026)
Brazil Pix
64.3%
Argentina Mercado Pago
63.6%
Peru Yape
49.0%
Chile Mercado Pago · August 2026, newly enabled
33.4%
Colombia PSE and Nequi · 55.6% in August
29.8%
Mexico Mercado Pago · April to August 2026, newly enabled
9.4%

Each method has a huge user base: Pix is used by 148 million people, Mercado Pago has 88 million monthly active users, Yape 16.4 million and Nequi some 28 million.

Sources: Worldpay, Global Payments Report 2026; Worldpay via Poder360 (Pix); dLocal, LATAM Retail & Payments Report 2025; Central Bank of Brazil (2026); Mercado Libre (Q2 2026); Credicorp (Q1 2026). publica.la first-party data, approved payments with an identified method.

Takeaways

Find 10% in each of the fifteen genes

One action per gene. As in the pit lane, nobody changed one big thing: they changed many small ones and never stopped measuring.

Gene What to do tomorrow
1B2C Combine direct sales, bookshops and marketplaces
2B2B Offer licensing models and LTI, SAML, IP and EZproxy integration
3Direct sales Your own shop at home; partner bookshops in every new country
4Bookshops and marketplaces Open your catalogue to third-party bookshops
5Subscriptions Test a subscription platform with your backlist
6Formats Publish your best-selling title as an audiobook
7Price per country Local prices in the 3 countries that buy from you most
8Local currencies Charge in the reader’s currency, don’t just display it
9Discounts A promotions calendar for each country, and bundles for each format
10SEO One page per title, language and country
11GEO A catalogue readable without JavaScript, with llms.txt
12Ads Campaigns only where you have local pricing and payment
13Portals Be on ebooksdepository.com
14Checkout Visible total, few fields, one step and a recovery email
15Payment methods Pix, Mercado Pago, PSE, Nequi, Yape and OXXO

A figure for Spanish publishers

The typical Spanish publisher on publica.la sells almost half its books abroad

Of the 35 Spain-based publishers selling on publica.la, the median one sells 46% of its digital books to readers in other countries: 74 countries in a year, led by Mexico, the United States, Colombia, Argentina and Chile. Nearly all of it is sold from their own shops. Only 175 sales went through third-party bookshops, and 95% of those went abroad: the channel that crosses the most borders is the one they use least.

Local bookshop + local currency = a sale abroad

Frequently asked questions

Which gene should I start with?
The five that matter most: being in each country’s bookshops, showing up on portals such as ebooksdepository.com, setting a price for each country, charging in the reader’s currency and accepting their local payment methods. Start with the three countries that already buy from you, and measure before and after every change.
I’m a Spanish publisher. Can I set a different price in each country?
For sales outside Spain, yes. The fixed price set by Law 10/2007 governs sales to consumers in Spain, ebooks included. Abroad, each destination’s law applies (Mexico, for example, requires a single registered price), and within the European Union the geo-blocking regulation allows different prices per country for ebooks. The prudent course is to set one price per market and take legal advice.
Where does the publica.la data come from?
From approved purchases on the platform between September 2025 and August 2026, excluding sandboxes and demos. Country prices cover every shop but only publishers with 30 or more sales, at the final price paid including taxes.
What does it mean that fifteen 10% improvements multiply sales by 4.18?
The effects compound: 1.1 to the power of 15 is 4.18. It is a way to think about small, sustained improvements, not a sales forecast. Every publisher starts from a different place, and each gene carries a different weight for each one.
Do I need my own shop to sell abroad?
Not necessarily. Each country’s bookshops and marketplaces already sell in their own currency and with their own payment methods. Your own shop gives you margin, brand and data at home, and most publishers combine the two.

Which gene should we switch on first?

Let’s review your international footprint together and find your next 10%. publica.la turns these genes into revenue; your publishing house makes the decision behind each 10%.

Request a demo Book a meeting with Nicolás

Methodology

First-party data. From data.publica.la: sales approved between 1 September 2025 and 31 August 2026, excluding sandboxes and demo shops. “Digital” means PDF, EPUB and audiobooks. The buyer’s country is the country of the sale; the publisher’s is that of the account holding the catalogue.

Prices. Medians of the final price paid (taxes included) in every shop, only for publishers with 30 or more sales and excluding 100% coupons. Each purchase is converted to US dollars at that day’s exchange rate before the median is taken. Paraguay is left out of the table because a single shop makes all its sales.

Checkout. Orders with at least one book created at the publica.la payment gateways, excluding subscriptions; “not completed” means pending, cancelled or failed. Payment methods: approved purchases with an identified method, January to August 2026.

The fifteen-gene sum (1.115 = 4.18) is an illustrative model of compounding, not a forecast. The relative weight of each gene is a publica.la estimate and only indicative.

Sources

ebooksdepository

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