For decades, finding Spanish-language books in the U.S. was like tilting at windmills.

Booksellers stocked few titles in the language of Cervantes, and those they carried came at a hefty premium. A paperback copy of “Don Quijote” in the original Spanish could easily cost triple the price of a deluxe hard-bound translation in English ― if it could be found at all.

Retailers blamed the expense of importing books printed in Spain and Latin America. And U.S. publishers lost faith in the market after botched attempts to translate English-language bestsellers produced error-ridden Spanish versions that sold poorly.

The upshot was that even in heavily Latino cities such as Los Angeles, where Spanish-language television and radio command huge audiences, readers of libros en espanol found little more than bilingual dictionaries and religious tracts buried in the backs of bookstores.

“There was a tremendous appetite for Spanish-language books that wasn’t being met,” said David Kipen, who runs Libros Schmibros, a used-book store in Boyle Heights with a large Latino clientele. “We might have 1,000 books in Spanish, but we’re always ravenous for more.”

But lately, thanks in big part to the Internet, the nation’s 38 million Spanish speakers have been finding a lot more to read. The explosion of portable reading devices such as Amazon’s Kindle and Barnes & Noble’s Nook has for the first time allowed publishers of Spanish-language content to market electronic books to U.S. buyers ― often at a fraction of the cost of printed versions.

It’s the latest twist on the disruptive power of digital publishing. But in contrast to printed books in English, which have lost sales to cheaper electronic versions, e-books in Spanish are delivering content where little existed before.

In the last two years, the number of Spanish-language titles available in the U.S. has tripled at some online booksellers. Imported hardcovers such as Colombian author Alvaro Mutis’ “Maqroll” trilogy that once retailed for more than $100 can now be had online for less than $15. And entire genres of Latin American literature ― think contemporary Ecuadorean poetry ― that were all but impossible to acquire at any price are now a few mouse clicks away.

Spanish-language book sales are still small compared with those in English, accounting for less than 5 percent of the nation’s $7.1 billion in annual sales, according to some estimates. But their rapid growth has fueled greater investment in the industry and challenged some long-held notions in the process.

“There has been a real shift,” said Ed Nawotka, editor in chief of online industry magazine Publishing Perspectives. “I see confidence in the market that has never been there before.”

When Luis Alcaraz bought a Kindle four years ago, he said, there was “practically nothing available to download in Spanish.” The Mexico native, who lives in Las Vegas, bought the device to replace printed books, which were filling up his house and were cumbersome to travel with.

Today, the software consultant said, he finds a seemingly endless supply of interesting electronic titles in his native language, including arcane technical tomes and science fiction novellas he likes to read on flights. To date, he’s bought 97 Spanish e-books for his Kindle. And he’s completely given up on printed books.

“There’s just been an incredible change,” said Alcaraz, who recently read a translation of Steve Jobs’ biography on his Kindle as well as “Administra Tu Pasion,” a Spanish-only treatise on why playing video games can help executives gain an advantage in the workplace.

Alcaraz is no anomaly. Latinos are adopting tablet computers and e-readers far faster than the U.S. population as a whole, according to a recent study by the Pew Research Center’s Internet & American Life Project. In 2011, about 1 in 20 Hispanics owned such a device, the group found; in 2012, the number had jumped to nearly 1 in 5.

“That study gave a lot of people belief that this market could work,” said Patricia Arancibia, an expert on the Spanish-language book market who founded Barnes & Noble’s Nook Books en Espanol site, the first of its kind in the United States.

Before 2010, she said, only about 10,000 Spanish-language print titles were in stock at online booksellers in the U.S. out of a total of about 650,000 Spanish titles worldwide.

Today, a search of Barnes & Noble’s website turns up nearly 65,000 Nook books available in Spanish. And Amazon’s Spanish-language page ― EBooks Kindle en Espanol ― now boasts more than 70,000 titles. That’s more than double the number offered when the site debuted in April 2012.

And although the overall growth in electronic book sales in the U.S. has shown signs of flattening in recent months, downloads in languages other than English are soaring.

According to Amazon, sales of foreign-language e-books in English-speaking markets (including the United States) were expected to rise 40 percent in 2013 compared with 2012, once final sales are tallied. Meanwhile, Audible.com, an Amazon subsidiary, said foreign-language audio book sales are increasing at a more than 25 percent annual rate.

“Digital removes all the obstacles you have with a printed book,” said Carmen Ospina, director of digital development at Random House Mondadori, which is based in Barcelona, Spain. The U.S. makes up 19 percent of the publisher’s worldwide e-book sales, compared with less than 10 percent a year ago, she said.

This month, Ospina said, the publisher will release Chilean author Isabel Allende’s new novel, “El Juego de Ripper,” simultaneously in the U.S., Spain and Latin America. In the U.S., a Kindle or Apple iBook edition will cost $9.99, about half the price of a hardcover copy.

By Ken Bensinger

(Los Angeles Times)

(MCT Information Services)