The long-awaited e-book platform from Spain’s big three publishers now has a name. At a meeting with booksellers in Madrid on Tuesday, representatives of the new company announced it will be called Libranda, and will offer the biggest selection of e-books in Spanish and Catalan in the world. Libranda will act as a digital distributor with no direct-to-consumer sales, in hopes of preserving the value chain linking publishers to readers through traditional and online booksellers.

In addition to founding parterns Planeta, Random House Mondadori, and Santillana, smaller houses Roca Editorial, Wolters Kluwer, SM and Edicions 62 have bought into the company, and the platform will also distribute books from prestigious independents Anagrama, Salamandra and Maeva. Libranda has deals in place to roll out in June with major chain retailers and ten indie bookstores across Spain that will also be part of the launch.

Libranda is clearly 100% made in Spain, a bid by the heavyweights in Spanish publishing to control their own destiny in the digital future. The fledgling e-book market in Spain is about to get access to the content it has been hungry for, as the arrival of Libranda with its wealth of new titles and bestsellers dwarfs earlier efforts like competing platform 36L or digital publishers Leer-e and Bubok.

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