French book trade recovering from Covid-19 lockdown

The French book trade is picking up from its two months of Covid-19 lockdown much better than expected.

Independent booksellers’ sales rose by 29% year on year between 12th May—the day after France began its gradual easing of the lockdown—and 12th July, according to the French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Fran√ßaise, SLF). But the figures, coming from the 250 members of the SLF’s observatory which represent a cross-section of the trade, also show that sales are still down 14% overall since 1st January.

Meanwhile the traditional rentrée littéraire between mid-August and October, when hundreds of new titles are published ahead of the literary prize season in the autumn, looks promising. Some publishers are delaying releases, but most are maintaining their initial plans, the economic daily Les Echos reported.

Vincent Montagne, president of the French Publishers Association (Syndicat de l’Edition Fran√ßaise, SNE), predicted a decline of 15% or less in sales for the year, instead of the 30% flagged at lockdown, thanks partly to the ‚Ǩ230m the government has allocated to the sector since the beginning of the crisis.

He suggested the public had found a taste for reading during the two months of lockdown, perhaps due to an absence of the performing arts and cinema, he told Les Echos.

Gilles Haéri, chairman and c.e.o. of Albin Michel, said he expected a slight increase in sales in the first seven months of this year from the same period of 2019, after a 22% rise for the publisher's revenues since mid-May. Mich&‌egrave;le Benbunan, c.e.o. of Editis, France’s second largest publisher, noted a strong recovery in book sales in cultural product chains and supermarkets, and said that the house will release 41 new novels at the rentrée.

Altogether 511 new novels and collections of short-stories will be published during the period, down from 524 a year earlier, the trade publication Livres Hebdo reported. An increase in French novels from established authors will partially offset a drop in first novels and translations.

Foreign authors making an appearance include Salman Rushdie, Colson Whitehead, Jon Kalman Stefansson, Erri de Luca, Joyce Carol Oates and Ken Follett.