The current article presents the research results about the publishing project led by German Arciniegas, when he was Minister of Education of Colombia: The collection of the “Biblioteca Popular de Cultura Colombiana”. This project shows some editorial trends of the official edition in Colombia during the first half of the twentieth century as well as the way in which the editor configured his readers and supported the idea of expanding the market for Colombian book. In this way, this project contributed to the modernization of the Colombian publishing industry, at a time of transition towards the professionalization-specialization of the function of editors and writers in Colombia, and of an increase of the reading public.