Liber book fair

This week, from Oct. 2 to 5, took place the annual Liber book fair in Barcelona (taking turns with Madrid). Its official website in English is here.
A few notes, grasped from an article in La Vanguardia newspaper on Oct. 3:
Barcelona is the Spanish publishing capital with an annual turnover of 3 bn EUR; 75% of this comes from Spanish-language media. The national market is in recession: in 2011 it shrunk by 4,1%, this year it could be another reduction by 7%. There is some hope in rising exports to Latin America. This trade fair expected 7000 visitors with offers by 459 publishing houses and printing presses from 15 countries, and 459 internatial buyers from 54 countries. The guest country was Paraguay.
Commentators remarked the absence of some big players of the Spanish-language book market: Random House Mondadori, Anagrama, Tusquets, Edhasa were not represented.
They don't see much sense in a book fair that is only second for the Spanish language (the Guadalajara (Mexico) book fair is bigger), and that comes just before the biggest annual book fair in Frankfurt/Main, Germany.
Topics of discussion were e.g. literature for the iPad, booktrailers, and the different VAT treatment in Spain of digital media (21%) and classical printed books (4%).

And article of El País newspaper book lovers might like, entitled "Reading for free in Madrid" here.