Anika entre Libros, the first literary blog in Spanish, was born in 1996.

Spanish readers choose our next book mainly because of the Word of mouth (more than 50% of readers), so our close environment recommends us and, increasingly (almost 40% of readers), we look for external recommendations in the pages and blogs specialized in literature.

The first literary blog in Spanish was born in 1996, when few of us had heard of blogs and even fewer would have thought of going to them to choose our next reading. The great pioneer was Anika, a Valencian, who was 28 years old at the time, passionate about literature and visionary of the new technologies that she created Anika Between Books (initially called Anika Libros). Today we are privileged to have it on our pages.

Actualidad Literatura: How did you come up with the idea of Anika between books at a time when a blog was a word that did not even exist in the vocabulary of most Spaniards, and even less so of readers?

Anika: In fact, when I started there were no blogs, if not blogs, and they were very personal. Sailing I realized that what I liked did not exist. I preferred to create an interactive magazine in html, a web, what happens is that I have already gotten used to being called a blog and I am not upset about it. What I saw on the internet at that time were shop windows: there was no collaboration, no participation, no interaction with the authors. I created three magazines based on what I would like as a "visitor", one about movies, another about books and a third about horror (Kruela's house, the most successful of all). I did what I liked: In the case of Anika Entre Libros, create content that would put authors in contact with readers, create spaces to actively participate, such as the Versiones Project Workshop, iinvite people to comment on books... This was the most powerful because Back then I was already doing 2.0, but I was by hand alone, copying and pasting the opinions that they sent me by e-mail, including the answers, and correcting mistakes if there were any. Twenty years later they said they had created 2.0 and I was laughing. It was clear that they had not met me, ha ha ha. All that interactivity did not exist then, you had to go to a chat or a forum to exchange opinions. Over time I had to choose which of the three websites to keep because I couldn't handle everything. Blogs came later and by then I already had the nickname of "boss" and "mother" of bloggers, LOL. Even so, when they talk about pioneers, there are still many people who do not even know that I exist.

AL: What makes a young person change their nightlife with friends in a city like Valencia! Because of the work it takes to launch not one if not several blogs in the culture sector?

Anika: That answer is easy: When I started with the web, I had been married for several years, I had already experienced all the parties I had and had, and after creating them I got pregnant, so more than combining the march with the work of the webs, I combined dedication to the contents with my private life: dinners at home with friends, bottles, books and strolls with the cart. I spent almost half my life in a kiosk because the little one entertained himself there and I was surrounded by magazines and books. So we were both happy. I lived the Valencian march before, don't think I missed it. The fact is that although I was a pioneer, I suppose I was not that young. My physique is deceiving. I just turned 51. 

AL: Today Anika between books is Un blog that all publishers have in mind, with great recognition and reputation among readers, writers and editors and in which several editors collaborate. You are guaranteed from your site at the Planeta Awards Gala to send copies requesting a review of the books in which publishers place their highest hopes of success. This is not by chance, it is the result of hard and very professional work. What are the criteria and the way of working that you have followed to achieve this professional reputation?

Anika: Honesty, education, commitment and a lot of work. And the time I've been online, naturally. Nor did I create Anika Entre Libros as a business, I conceived it as a place for interactive readers non-profit, so we have always been very free when it comes to giving our opinion. In fact, authors and readers have angered me for not speaking highly of a book of theirs or that they have read, but publishers have never pressured me. The most I've read in an email has been "treat him well, please", but treating him well, for me, is being polite when it comes to giving an opinion. A bad criticism is not worth me, it is useless. The reviews have to tell the potential reader what they have transmitted to the reviewer, what they liked, what not if so, who can like it, if they see it well written, if it stands out for something, etc. Subjectivity and objectivity if possible in the same review. Things that reach the potential recipient. I'm not thinking about the publisher -which is basically the great beneficiary- because I am a reader who addresses other readers. I understand that this is the most respectable and the readers who read me or read us appreciate the sincerity.

AL: Mother of three children, tireless reader. What does Anika bring to Anika as a human being between books? What satisfactions outweigh the number of years and hours devoted to this project?

Anika: Ufff. I have asked myself many times, but I have always had the answer at specific moments: on some occasions I have been about to close. It is not easy to pay expenses for something that does not bring you any benefit, but when I was almost determined to close the web I received E-mails from people who told me that thanks to the web their depression had passed, or that it had helped them overcome things... things that made me cry and make the decision to move on because I was still very overwhelmed and saw the future very black without income at home, but I was helping emotionally we. Those messages couldn't be casual. They always came when I was thinking of quitting. After all, it is not for receiving books. I've always read and when I didn't have money I went to the library. Today it also helps me to move forward knowing that, thanks to my work, I have related jobs, this time, paid.

 AL: After so much time observing the changes in reading habits, time spent, literary genres, tastes, you are in a privileged position to intuit what the relationship between books and the new generations will be like: Is there a future for books? What will happen to the publishing sector?

Anika: I don't think it will change significantly in the short term. The media change, but the pleasure of reading will remain in the same place: either you are born with it, or it is instilled in you, or it is discovered in you. The only thing I miss is the quality, and since we have already reached that I do not doubt that it will continue like this because just as there are people with criteria, there are those who have little. Today everything is published, anything. It is enough that you have followers for the publisher to notice you, and we have begun to refuse to read certain books because not even repeating the author have we seen an evolution in their literary quality. They are authors because for the publisher they are a business. I also write, I do it since I was little, and I know that not everyone will like me, that is obvious, but if I write I put everything of myself in writing, I work it out. I would not like to be told "uff, so many years reading and how badly this woman writes." Now he publishes a lot of people who write fatally. I suspect that this trend will remain in place for a long time so in the short term, until another trend arrives, things will remain the same. In fact, a new one has already been established that does not supersede the one named: singers, actors and actresses who now write books. There are more and more. Let's say that the publishing world has always been guided and will continue to be guided by booms, fashions, and some disastrous ones (such as the null literary quality but with many followers on instagram or other social networks) they stay forever, and in this sense the new ones Readers learn that quality doesn't matter. That is the worst of the present and future editorial degeneration.

AL: Throughout 23 years of existence in this world and with the evolution that both technology and the world of books have experienced, you will have many anecdotes to share with readers.

Anika: Some. The first is that I still don't use a reader. I'm a fetishist, don't let me change a book for a screen. Even so, I have had to read a lot on the screen because the manuscripts for awards come in pdf (so I have read them as a reader but not as a jury), but since that is paid work, I do not complain, hahaha. I also do not understand the people who read on the mobile. I go after my children continually saying that they are going to go blind. I'm one of those who still calls the gameboy "little machines", or if it no longer exists, I don't know, the Nintendo or the Wii. I am terrible with new technologies. I still don't know how to upload an e-book to the internet. Sometimes I think that I am like those grandmothers who did not understand how airplanes could fly.

AL: Despite being the pioneer in blogging, It took you a long time to enter social networks.

Anika: True. When I got to facebook and twitter, the rest of the blogs and pages already had hundreds and even thousands of followers; I had to start there from zero again (I have started from scratch several times for various reasons), and although it seems incredible it's only been two months since I dared to become youtuber. I have had to overcome my fears because being youtuber with 50 tacos talking about books when most of those who have been doing it for years seem like my children ... It has not been easy, but I wake up eating the world every day. Also, this way I give more visibility to the books and show more variety to potential readers. Since I started, a book that comes to me, a book that I show you and tell you what it is about. I won't be able to read all of them so I thought the least I could do was show the editorial news that came to me. I'm already going through the sixth video and it seems that I have lost my fear (It seems).

AL: What do you think that many publishers consider a book novelty for only three months?

Anika:  It is very sad that an old book is considered from the third month And I'm not telling you anything if they published it last year! As if the readers only wanted news, when, in reality, many readers cannot afford to buy so many books - much less read them. We are also guided by word of mouth and reviews, and not by "news" always. Books should be cared for more, give them a long life, pamper them, love them, never stop advertising them or advise them if they are worth it. The opposite is called business and readers don't like that. Long live the book, please. It is worth that some remain along the way because they have not been successful, but all? The day before yesterday I told a press girl from a publishing group something about a book and she answered that the book was from last year, as if the book had no value anymore. Can you imagine how an author or reader can feel about something like this? I will continue reading books from other years, and in my statistics I see that they enter a lot to reviews of books that are years old. But very much. We readers like to enjoy books, not to be shown them and three months later to take them away. I suppose that publishers prefer that the public deviate towards the ebook but from what I have read we are still one of the countries where we read more physical than electronic books. I do not know if it will be true but I suspect that it is, we are very customary.

AL: What does the future hold for Anika between books and Anika herself?

Anika: I hope that you are happy. Although I've been trying to scratch hours on the web for a while to read more –because there are people who read more than me, believe me- and also to write, since I have dedicated so much time to Anika Entre Libros that I had no freedom for anything else. I am fortunate to have two friends (Selin and Ross) who help me with it, and we are a lot of friends reading and reviewing. I have been with this dynamic for more than twenty years and I deduce that it will continue like this until something good enough comes out to be worth giving up. At the moment it has brought me collaborations in the magazine Más Allá, in the magazine Qué Leer and the possibility of leading youth Reading Clubs, apart from other jobs related to reading, and these things I can combine with the web.

AL: And finally, the most intimate question that can be asked of a literary blogger: what do you like to read? Any favorite genre? One or more headline writers?

Anika: I am known for my especially dark literary tastes. Although I read and have read everything, I am at a point where I prefer to take advantage of the time that I have left exclusively for what entertains and surprises me. Surprising myself is no longer easy, that's why as a reader I look for surprise. My genders are el terror, science fiction, dystopias, genre noir (thriller, domestic noir and anyone who does not have an obvious plot or, otherwise, who has the ability to amaze me or hook me), something fantastic, and, although I have it abandoned because they are usually billet, I have always liked the historical novel when it does not speak of the Spanish civil war, that like the grail and the holy sheet are subjects that already bore me sovereignly. I also read very gladly some juvenile novels and comics, without ever abandoning popular books and essays on the mystery.

Regarding authors, I have always said that I do not like to make a list or say three names because it would leave many behind. A person who reads little could do it, those of us who read so much cannot narrow the list so easily. If I tell you that I love Biurrun, J. Palma or Carrisi, I am leaving Somoza, Sisí or Thilliez behind. And that example works for me for a huge list. If I give you twenty names, I'll still be leaving another twenty. Generally what I do is answer with names of authors already dead: Poe, Lovecraft, Wilde, Shirley Jackson ...

We hope Anika continues to bring books to readers for many more years, and why not? Generating curiosity about books in young people who come to see what this is about literature.