How Lantia is changing the publishing world with printer technology

Enrique Parrilla wields today's printer technology like a sledgehammer.

He shatters centuries-old business models, moving books to market faster and in pint-sized volumes. He does this while asking readers to invest in new authors — a new publishing business model and approach that is clearing a path for authors in Latin America and Cuba who’d never dreamed of seeing their books on a retailer like Amazon.

In 2013, Parrilla and his partners founded Lantia, a Spanish-based print-on-demand publisher, digital distributor, bookstore marketer and, later, crowdfunding partner. Lantia has received the Red Herring Award, as one of the 100 most disruptive companies in Europe, joining the likes of Facebook, Twitter, Skype, YouTube and Google.

At Ricoh’s Publishing Executive Symposium in Boulder, Colorado, Parrilla talked about how his company’s broad portfolio of technology has created a new reality for publishers, authors and readers. 

Pentian: A voice for authors

Parrilla laughingly calls Pentian “a Vegas for real ‘bookies.’” Pentian is the company’s crowdfunding publishing platform, and it enables new authors to gain funding from readers and investors for their books. The success rate is impressive: Between 40 and 60 percent of authors meet their fundraising goals. When books, launched by Lantia, are sold, both authors and readers profit financially. From net profits, 50 percent goes to financial backers, 40 percent to the author, and 10 percent to Pentian.

The company produces books in both print and e-formats and automatically connects to the major marketplaces around the world through Amazon, Apple, Kobo, Google, and Barnes & Noble.

Lantia publishes 20 percent of its books in English. Spanish-language material comes from Spain and Latin America–primarily, Chile, Argentina, and Ecuador–where local options are limited. Pentian has also given a voice to Cuban writers, where the high literacy rate, roughly 97 percent, has created a strong culture of not only reading, but also of writing.

Enrique Parrilla: A vision for the future

What’s next? Parrilla has set his sights on education. His consciousness was raised when he witnessed the destruction of 200,000 textbooks because the publisher needed to reduce taxable assets. He imagines students in Africa trying to learn math and science from photocopied pages and told himself there must be a collaborative project out there that could solve the problem — and he wants to be part of the solution.

Enthusiastic about the boundless potential that technology offers for publishing, Parrilla expects his publishing companies to become the largest provider of content in the world.