At first Ruedo ibérico operated from a modest location in Marais and in 1970 it opened a bookshop in the Barrio Latino that soon became a hub for students, tourists and Spanish refugees hungry for reading material. Their books were also sold at various locations around France, particularly in Perpignan and Bayonne, where many Spaniards crossed the border to buy them facing the risk of arrest and confiscation. They also went on sale in Spain at high prices stocked by risk taking distributors in the back rooms of specific bookshops, the most significant of whom were Sigfried Blume and Rufino Torres. They used to receive small packages wrapped and labelled in a variety of ways and with no return  address, posted on agreed dates to addresses that José Martínez guarded zealously. The books that slipped through police lines by a variety of means and then circulated through Spain were never very numerous, nor was there much reason for large quantities. On the other hand, they eagerly exchanged hands, were read many times and sparked much word of mouth to the point of weighing heavily on public opinion.

One of the projects of the RI was the creation of the Ruedo ibérico Award and since the tributes to Antonio Machado were acts of anti-Franco affiliation, this was the framework used to announce the panel’s decision and thus earn the publishing house some notoriety. Grado elemental (Elemental Degree) by Ángel González won the award for poetry and Año tras año (Year after year) by Armando López Salina won the award for novel. The award was not reconvened until 1972. But in this second edition, books on Spanish political history under Franco were requested instead of literary texts. Unfortunately only one manuscript was presented, moreover an incomplete work, and this led to the disbanding of the award.

Ruedo ibérico also set up a stand in the Frankfurt book festival for the first time in 1971. It occupied a place amongst the Spanish publishing houses, achieving not only great visibility but at the same time an anti-francoist propaganda effect with wide-ranging international repercussions.