“Look”, says Sigrid Kraus, “this was my office until now.
Empty.
I don't even have books to give you."
Indeed, there are no books in the office from which he directed the Salamandra label in recent years, located in the Madrid headquarters of the Penguin Random House group, which he joined in 2019. He does not say it with pity: Kraus (Gunzenhausen, Bavaria , 59 years old) has decided to let go of the reins of this amphibious publishing house, which will now be directed by Pilar Reyes (also in charge of other group labels, such as Alfaguara), but she will not completely disassociate herself.
Her path will run away from management, but focused on what she enjoys the most: tracking down new books or supporting those already published before the press and booksellers.
“It's been hard for me to find a name for this job, but I think it could be called editorial consulting,” she explains.
Under his direction, the label has made indisputable discoveries such as the Harry Potter saga, by JK Rowling,
The Boy in the Striped Pajamas
, by John Boyne, or
The Curious Incident of the Dog at Midnight
, by Mark Haddon,
and rescues of hits such as
The Handmaid's Tale,
by Margaret Atwood, or the works of Sándor Márai and Irène Némirovsky.
What is the secret to spotting the needle in the literary haystack?
“I suppose you have to have some intuition, although I don't quite know how to define it,” says Kraus.
Bet on being connected with the world, not only the editorial, but also the news, the cinema, the series, what happens, observing where society breathes.
"There are also editors who live withdrawn from the world and do a great job," he says, "but I function differently."
Overwhelming successes like the Harry Potter books can be a logistical nightmare for a small publisher.
“In our case, I'm proud that we could handle it.
A success of a saga like this can cannibalize a publisher, causing it to end up dedicating itself to just that ”, says Kraus.
In fact, in Salamandra they did the accounts separately: on the one hand, the Harry Potter business, on the other, the rest of the publishing house, so that it would not be distorted by the best-selling spell of the young British wizard.
Speaking of books for young people... what do you think of the rewriting of Roald Dahl's books in pursuit of inclusion that has raised so much controversy this week?
“I am horrified, it seems like a real crime to me”, replies Kraus, “what intrigues me the most is the legal question, how to protect an author's work from destruction.
In this case, the heirs agree... but it still seems curious to me that something like this cannot be avoided”.
The editor Sigrid Kraus, who leaves the direction of Salamandra.Santi Burgos
A salamander that came with experience
The history of the publishing house begins when Kraus and his partner, Pedro del Carril, set up the Spanish section of Emecé, an Argentine publishing house owned by the latter's family, founded in 1939. He was in charge of management and she was in charge of editorial direction.
“We started only with the rights to Borges and
The Little Prince
,” recalls Kraus.
In the year 2000, the Del Carril family decides to sell the publishing house to the Planeta group, but the Spanish section is not satisfied, so it becomes independent, keeping all the contracts, and converts into a new label: Salamandra.
“I don't really know how the name came about.
It was at a dinner with friends, with a few drinks too many, we began to try names, laughing.
The next day we only remembered one: Salamandra.
It was a sign”, recalls the editor, amused.
Salamandra's philosophy consisted of launching a literary publishing house with foreign authors, thus taking advantage of the fact that Kraus was born in Germany, had lived in several countries in his childhood and youth, and knew several languages.
"Besides, I wanted to take care of my own daughter and not a bunch of Spanish authors," he jokes.
The vicissitudes of his life, with stays in Brazil or Angola, were due to his father's profession: a geologist who was sent by his company to different places in search of minerals.
In that remote and traveling childhood, young Kraus found entertainment in her parents' library.
“At that time there weren't so many children's and young people's books, so I would soon end up reading Tolstoy or Dostoyevsky, although with the look of that age”, says the editor.
She liked that world that her books opened up for her, so she soon decided that she wanted to make her life out of them.
She trained in publishing in Germany and ended up in Barcelona in the nineties inspired by the songs that her idol, Caetano Veloso, dedicated to the city.
The editor Sigrid Kraus, responsible for successes such as the Harry Potter saga, 'The Boy in the Striped Pajamas', by John Boyne or 'The Handmaid's Tale', by Margaret Atwood.Santi Burgos
When success is passed
Despite the large number of successes, in Salamandra they also let some pass.
For example,
El mundo de Sofía
, by Jostein Gaarder, with which she finally gave Siruela the bell.
“My mother, who had bought it for her in Germany, told me about that book, and she even sent it to me.
I didn't pay too much attention to him either.
I started reading it and I liked it, but Pedro and I did not believe that a philosophical topic had a pull… And look, ”she says, without apparent remorse.
Gaarder's novel has sold a million and a half copies since 1994 and initiated countless young people, and some adults, into philosophical thought.
On another occasion they let the
Millennium trilogy pass
, by Stieg Larsson, who started the fever of the Nordic black novel.
They did not see clearly what to launch with a trilogy that did not get too hooked on them either.
On occasions Kraus has found himself in the position of deciding on a book that, although it could have a huge commercial pull, he did not quite like.
This is the case of the erotic phenomenon
Fifty Shades of Grey
, by EL James, which became a world
bestseller
, published in Spain by Grijalbo.
“Whether it's more literary or more commercial, to publish a book you have to be enthusiastic.
If not, I don't post it.
Although a big business is foreseen, ”he says.
How has the publishing world changed in all these years?
“Now everything is much faster, when I started the most advanced thing was the fax, which didn't work half the time.
And it is easier to access the manuscripts, which before had to be printed, with the cost that this entailed, and now the agencies send you by email, ”he says.
In addition, he celebrates that technology has allowed the sector to decentralize and important publishers and bookstores to emerge throughout the country and not only in Madrid and Barcelona.
The salamander befriends the penguin
Another change would happen in 2019, when Salamandra joined a large group, Penguin Random House.
"Pedro [del Carril] had to retire, due to age, and integration seemed like the natural path to us," says Kraus.
Precisely, the fact that the integration, which included the entire team with a few voluntary exceptions, has been completed successfully is one of the reasons for Kraus to go into the background.
Now that he has joined a large group, coming from independence, he can reflect with direct knowledge on the great editorial concentration that occurs in Spain in two groups, Planeta and Penguin, which account for a good part of the market.
"The truth is that now there are many more small publishers outside of the large groups, setting up a publisher is now much easier, so I don't see any danger of the ecosystem becoming impoverished," says Kraus.
He also points out that the large groups have learned to respect the identity and editorial independence of the labels they host, avoiding a homogenization that, in principle, would allow savings.
"They have realized that it is what the reader demands, and that, although on paper it was saved, it was not like that in the success of the books," says the editor.
During the integration she had to learn a lot of processes to fit into the great Penguin machinery, but she believes that being there will give Salamandra a lot more "power".
An example: now that the price of paper is rising, with dramatic consequences for some publishers,
The paper is not the only anxiety in the sector.
The rise of Amazon is a constant threat to bookstores, which have to compete with the laziness of some readers who would rather click from home than pet books in person.
"Amazon is good at selling the publishing fund, but I think that those who start the phenomena in Spain are the booksellers," says Kraus;
"In fact, Amazon without the bookstores would not work."
He says that, in the United States, where Amazon is most prominent, only eight books stand out on its website (before there were ten) of all those that are published.
“A lot of the business depends on it.
Imagine the fight to be included there, it's crazy," adds the editor, "I don't think it's a desirable future."
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