Reaching for Latino market.(Chicago Tribune)

In June, Landres, bidding on behalf of an affiliated imprint, Scribner, took part in the auction of "Dirty Girls Social Club," Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez's English-language novel of six Latinas who meet in college and keep in touch during their young adulthood.

Scribner didn't win the bidding for the book, which fetched nearly half a million dollars from St. Martin's. But Landres wishes Valdes-Rodriguez well: "I very much want to see her succeed because it will make my job easier."

The American book industry, with total sales flat over the last several years, has been searching for new markets to nurture and exploit. And the nation's nearly 39 million Hispanics _ whose buying power this year is more than half a trillion dollars, according to the Selig Center for Economic Growth at the University of Georgia _ seem to be a community ready to be tapped.

But, so far, things …