By Kirk Whisler, Empowering Latino Futures
Growing at a Time When Some Say ‘People Don’t Read Anymore’
The Guadalajara market area, with a population of 5.5 million, has about one-third the
population of the Los Angeles DMA. Yet, it now hosts the largest Book Festival in the world, the Guadalajara Feria Internacional del Libro (FIL). Let’s look at a few statistics:
- 907,300 general public attendees and another 18,100 professional attendees.
- With visitors staying an average of 4.5 hours, that means over 4.1 million hours spent lookingat books and listening to authors.
- Presentations: 632 book presentations, 263 literary forums, 210 professional activities, 106 youth FIL activities, 106 academic forums, and 92 musical activities.
- Over 2.3 million books were purchased, not counting those to be delivered later. The larger stands had continuous lines of 15 to 30 people waiting to buy their books.
- The FIL is the only meaningful International Literary Rights sales event in North America, with 162 literary agents attending.
- It’s important to look at the demographics of the attendees to fully appreciate what is happening within the FIL. On one side, 194,239 schoolchildren attended the FIL through efforts organized by schools. Another estimated 320,000 young people aged 15 to 30 came on their own at other times to buy books and enjoy the activities. Seeing hundreds of thousands of young people investing their time and money into books is truly heartwarming and unseen at this level in the USA.
Empowering Latino Futures’ Presence at the FIL
Over the nine days of the FIL, I saw over 170 authors or publishers who have earned recognition from our International Latino Book Awards, either in 2024 or in previous years. The Empowering Latino Futures booth hosted 42 of those authors. Just the authors from our booth were interviewed at least 130 times by Mexican TV networks, radio stations, newspapers, magazines, and podcasts. It was wonderful seeing so many talented authors who loved being surrounded by book lovers.
What the U.S. Media & Library Industries Can Learn from the FIL
There were 849 media representatives present at the Guadalajara FIL, yet only 24 were from the USA. Twelve were members of the National Association of Hispanic Publications, the oldest and largest Latino media organization in the USA. Not a single mainstream English-language newspaper, magazine, TV network, or radio network was present. All major Mexican TV and radio networks, newspapers, magazines, and podcasts were there not only covering the event but interviewing hundreds of authors. I’d love to see this kind of major attention on reading in the USA.
The New York Times, which was not represented in Guadalajara, ran an Op-Ed article in 2013 calling Mexico “The Country That Stopped Reading.” The highly biased and totally inaccurate piece ends by stating, “…the Mexican government is not ready for its people to be truly educated.” From my over two decades of seeing the FIL evolve and grow, I can only state that the United States can learn a lot from how the FIL is ingraining reading into their youth.
What Should the Next Step Be?
Here in the USA, we need to collectively realize that we can all learn from what the Guadalajara FIL is doing right. Let’s recognize that young people do want to read, as long as we are presenting them with books they can relate to. Let’s work to increase the diversity of books offered here in the USA. While the USA is one of the most diverse countries in the world, you would not know it from the books covered in mainstream media and presented in schools.
Let’s all start the year by making plans to be in Guadalajara from November 29 through
December 7, 2025. We still have more to learn and books to get out to an interested audience.
