Currently in the United States, speaking and reading Spanish is difficult. Due to funding cuts in US school and library programs that acquired Spanish-language and bilingual (Spanish-English) books, the book distributor has closed. lectrumheadquartered in New Jersey. They announced that they will cease operations at the end of December. It has been in the business for over sixty years, and for many of the Latin American publishers who will be affected, it has been a gateway to the American market.
Last Thursday, Lektorum B Large liquidation auction of approximately 700,000 copies in Spanish and bilingual. The primary reason for the closure was changes in federal funding for the purchase of Spanish-language books American schools in cities with large Hispanic populationsThis caused a significant decline in Lectorum sales.
As stated by Lectorum’s President and CEO, Alex Correa, L Publishers Weekly, Sales are down 30% this year“In an industry that already operates on low margins,” he said. For decades, Lectorum has been a major supplier to American schools, accounting for 60% of the textbook trade and 70% of children’s books. After the pandemic, the company’s income stabilized at about twelve million dollars annually, but the change in educational policy in the United States (which caused a decrease in purchases) worsened the company’s situation.
Correa attributed the company’s closure to budget cuts and other reasons, such as the depreciation of the dollar, which led to an increase in the value of imported books (which Lectrum brought from other markets, including Argentina). The greatest competition is from American publishers who sell Spanish-language books at lower prices He said lower profit margins for distributors are because large publishing groups offer lower discounts to their competitors.
Lectorum, which also became a publishing house, published bilingual and Spanish children’s books (such as the series starring Mercy Watson the Pig) and served as a sales agent for MakeMake, a Colombia-based e-book distribution company that works with libraries and schools. Correa said he hopes this service will continue “without interruption.” The Lectorum catalog contains two hundred titles.
Before becoming a distributor and publisher, it was a bookstore located on 14th Street in Manhattan. In 1996, it was purchased by Scholastic, and in 2009, it was acquired by brothers Alex and Fernando Correa. Lectorum had Spanish publishers “strategic partners” such as Anaya, Juventud, Salamandra, Siruela, Jaguar and Planeta. Ekare from Venezuela, Progreso and Fondo de Cultura Económica from Mexico, Panamericana from Colombia, Adriana Hidalgo, Kalandraka, Edelvives and V&R from Argentina, among many others.
Former Argentine editor and former literary agent based in Spain, Guillermo Chavelzon, who will visit the Buenos Aires International Book Fair in 2026, wrote on his Facebook account: “the Donald Trump administration policies They try to ignore that 68 million Hispanic citizens live in that countryMany of them have not only been nationalized, but also for several generations there. For decades, various federal education programs have purchased Spanish-language textbooks for schools with large immigrant or Spanish-speaking populations. Having access to teaching and reading materials in Spanish was, contrary to what is said now, something that teachers considered essential for their integration. If such immigration was possible (in a country where everyone has immigrant backgrounds), it was because the United States needed it to grow. The strange thing is that they still need it, as evidenced by the extremely low unemployment rate among Hispanic citizens.
For Chavelzon, Trump’s “America (Only) for Americans” (MAGA) policy led to the cancellation of these programs in schools attended by Spanish speakers and caused the closure of Lectrum.
“But it’s not just Spanish: Baker & Taylor, the main supplier of English-language books to libraries across the country, recently went bankrupt, closing its doors at the end of this year, leaving 580 employees without work or compensation, and without the ability to pay their suppliers, among them Lectrum. It wouldn’t be surprising if the next step was to start closing bookstores,” Shavelzon concludes with a bleak forecast.