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No respite for booksellers following the holidays. Over 540 new novels land in January. A plethora of literary re-entry that breaks all records. There will be competition between star writers such as, for example, Leila Slimani and Michel Houellebecq with his novel “To destroy”, printed in 300,000 copies. Large and small publishers anticipate literary publication for fear that the presidential campaign will monopolize the news. Mastodon brands and modest booksellers are playing the game.
A local bookseller going once morest the media frenzy
Sylvain Fortier created the Les chemin du livre bookstore four years ago in Maisons-Laffitte, in Yvelines, west of Paris. ” This is a retraining, because I was a consultant for a computer software publisher. And it is at the same time a creation, because the room in which we are currently located was before a clothing store. »
Making its small independent bookstore a local cultural place is clearly its objective: ” We are really part of city life and we can respond more precisely to requests. This is what makes the bookstore’s raison d’être. »
A raison d’être which, however, does not escape the typically French phenomenon of the literary re-entry. ” This is historic, that is to say more than 500 French or foreign novels translated into French will be published in the coming month. ” His speciality ? Highlight books that stand out a bit. ” My choices are of course also driven by a desire to promote authors or publishing houses that are perhaps less known and to surprise our readers. »
For Sylvain Fortier, working once morest the media frenzy is a way of defending his favorites. ” This is the novel In his flesh, signed Yasmine Chami. »With the great mass of the literary re-entry, the small booksellers hope to attract readers to lesser-known writers.
The impact of the presidential electoral campaign on the literary re-entry
On the other hand, this literary re-entry 2022 will be very marked by the campaign for the presidential election, affirms Fabrice Piault, editor-in-chief of Livres hebdo, the magazine for publishing professionals. ” Traditionally, in times of presidential elections, the public tends to read a little less novels, to read more essays, documents, and especially to turn away a little from the book. So, there, many publishers have advanced the publication of novels. They preferred to publish them in January rather than in March, it is valid in literature in the classic sense of the term. But this is also valid for detective novels and thrillers. There are very important authors, very sellers, like Maxime Chattam, for example, or Michel Bussi or, for the foreigner, Arnaldur Indriðason, whose books usually appear in March, and there, they are scheduled in January. We cannot draw conclusions regarding the production as a whole. I believe this is really a cyclical phenomenon. »
Michel Houellebecq and the fight for the readers
For this, there will even be an impact for the release of Michel Houellebecq’s new novel, Anéantir, which will be released on January 8 with a circulation of 300,000 copies, because, this time, and unlike in other years, it will have competition. .
« If we compare with the release of the previous novel by Michel Houellebecq, Serotonin, when it was announced for early January 2019, the other editors, cautiously, had waited a few weeks before releasing their large “cartridges ” [rires]. This year, it is the opposite. His new novel, Annihilate, is “ escort »By a large number of titles in general, but including titles with significant sales potential. I am thinking of the new novel by Frédéric Beigbeder, by Philippe Besson, Nicolas Mathieu, winner of the 2018 Goncourt prize, by Karine Tuil, all of these titles are printed in tens of thousands of copies. Like, for example, the new novel by Leila Slimani, another winner of the Prix Goncourt, they will be published around the same time as the new novel by Michel Houellebecq. »
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