French publishers warn of 'severe and lasting damage' from pandemic

The French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l’Edition, SNE) said on Tuesday (19th May) that the Covid-19 pandemic has inflicted “severe and lasting damage” to French publishers, and called for the government to adopt emergency measures for the book industry beyond the ‚Ǩ180m promised by culture minister Franck Riester.

A survey conducted by SNE between 27th April and 6th May showed that serious financial difficulties would undermine publishers’ activity at least in the short and medium-term, and that government tax and other breaks were considered insufficient.

Forty-six per cent of respondents said they expected a fall in sales of 20% to 40% in 2020 compared to 2019, and 27% expected a decline of more than 40%. Fifty-seven percent predicted cashflow problems and 53% delayed or cancelled investments. Eighteen small houses said they might have to fold.

Seventy-seven per cent estimated their losses at up to 60% for March, 73% at more than 60% for April, and 38% forecast a similar drop in May. On average, publishers said they would cancel or postpone 18% of their new releases planned for this year.

Among the reasons for the bleak outlook were fears that booksellers and other outlets would be slow to gear up after reopening on 11th May when the eight-week lockdown was partially lifted, and that readers would then have priorities other than books.

A quarter of respondents said they had not asked for help from the government, while 44% had sought delayed payment of social charges. Twenty per cent said they had claimed a government €1,500 payment for small firms with fewer than 10 employees, and 72% had put staff on part-time hours with a government subsidy.

Sales of e-books by the 30% of respondents offering them rose by 30% or more during the lockdown, which began on 17th March. But only 8% of houses boosted their audiobook sales by the same amount.

The SNE received responses from 132 publishing groups representing 250 houses, 47% of them with annual sales of less than €500,000. The SNE has 720 members.

There was a ray of light in the gloom, however. Publishers’ relations with authors, suppliers, distributors, staff and shareholders have held up well overall during the crisis, although tensions were noted with banks and some booksellers. Out of the total of respondents, 83% said relations with authors were very good, 70% said the same for distributors and 61% for booksellers.

Help for booksellers was respondents’ top priority, the SNE said. Emergency measures for them, independent publishers and authors include subsidies, loans, social charges and tax relief, a special postal rate for books, a major publicity campaign and massive orders by libraries, it said. Other suggestions were suspending VAT on books, subsidies for textbooks, continuation of subsidised part-time work and publishers limiting the number of new titles to avoid deluging booksellers as they get back into gear.

Separately, the market research firm GfK reported that retail book sales during the eight-week lockdown plunged 60% to 15 million over the same period last year.