2024-08-06 07:52:48
At first glance, there is little reason to worry about foreign literature on the French market. In 2023, this segment saw its sales, in volume, increase by 0.6%, compared to 2022, in a global book market that declined over the period (-4%) but above all, in value, it rose above the symbolic wall of 400 million euros (+6.7% over one year), according to NielsenIQ GfK. A trend that is confirmed in 2024. During the first half of the year, sales in volume and value climbed by 3.8 and 7% respectively over one year. But as in certain literary works, you have to know how to read between the lines.
“It’s a decoy. These figures are driven by romance. But quality foreign literature, like French literature, is not doing well at all. We see very good books coming out with good promotion and making 200 sales. Which practically never happened before, asserts Nathalie Zberro, CEO of Editions de l’Olivier (belonging to La Martinière within Média-Participations). “We experienced a kind of Thirty Glorious Years of foreign literature between the early 1980s and the end of the 2000s. Today, some languages like Spanish no longer sell at all in France. And without the artificial effect of the rare bestsellers in this field, this is the market that has suffered the biggest decline of all publishing.”
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