Ocean Press Launches Spanish-language Imprint
by Aída Bardales -- Críticas, 8/15/2006
In an effort to continue expanding its Spanish-language publishing program, Ocean Press established Ocean Sur earlier this year. The new imprint will publish all of Ocean Press’s Spanish-language titles from and for Latin America. Ocean Press co-founder David Deutschmann told Críticas that under Ocean Sur the publisher will continue to release books on Latin American politics and history. The publisher also has plans to publish books on political art, poetry, oral history, Latin American feminism, and political theory. “We are also starting series of titles from specific countries in Central America, Chile, and Colombia,” he added. “[Content will be] prepared within those countries with local authors.”
Ocean Sur has over 60 titles in print, after incorporating existing Spanish-language titles previously published under Ocean Press. “We are presently publishing one new Spanish-language title each week…. By the end of 2007 we hope to have 150 Spanish-language titles in print under the imprint of Ocean Sur,” said Deutchmann.
In keeping with the company’s political philosophy and “radical global view”, Deborah Schnookel, co-founder of Ocean Press and Ocean Sur, explains that “The project is primarily aimed at ‘breaking even’ rather than turning a profit…Our distributors will be selling Ocean Sur books at lower than average (sometimes significantly lower) market prices.”
Ocean Press services more than 2000 bookstores in the United States, and has high expectations for it’s Che Guevara titles. It has sold over 45,000 copies of Notas de viaje. Diario de Motocicleta (Motorcycle Diaries) in the United States over the past two years, as well as film rights to two classic Che Guevara works—El diario del Che en Bolivia (Bolivian Diary) and Pasajes de la guerra revolucionaria (Reminiscences of the Cuban Revolutionary War)—to Steven Soderbergh, maker of Traffic and Erin Brokovich, among other hits. Says Deutschmann, “We expect [similar sales] in the next years: October 2007 is the 40th anniversary of the death of Che Guevara. The first Soderbergh film will be released in December 2007; the second in May 2008. June 2008 is the 80th anniversary of Che Guevara’s birth.”
Consortium Book Sales & Distribution will continue to be the Ocean Sur trade distributor in the United States. For additional information on Ocean Press and Ocean Sur, visit www.oceanbooks.com.au
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