Yep, we can go to the bookstores again. Flute, there are no new books to read. If the deconfinement allows the bookstores to welcome their customers again, the publishing houses have, for the most part, chosen to postpone the release of their new products from spring to autumn. At least...
" So what ? Have you already read all the books?, Strap Fabienne Van Hulle, from the Place Ronde bookstore, in Lille. Frankly, we are still spoiled for choice. There are already all the March books, which have been confined. The ones I had chosen and that I could not present to my clients, today they are all on display. "
Sophie Martin of the Les temps Modernes bookstore, in Orléans, agrees: “Come see me and I will find you dozens of books to read. Just before the confinement, there were many novelties, for example Indian literature which was to be in the spotlight at the Paris Book fair. We closed our bookstores in disaster, full of new things… ”
"Moralize production"
The booksellers go further. Not only does the absence of outings in May and June not worry them, but it would rather be to delight them. “There are 300 new books a day. No one can absorb this tsunami, explains Fabienne Van Hulle. Neither me and my 40 m2, nor the largest bookstore in Europe which is my neighbor and its 4,000 m2. "
In Orleans, Sophie Martin even dares to hope that this episode will "rationalize and moralize production. We always run out of time for books. And then books are not a perishable commodity. It is good news for us that the publishers have reduced their production… ”
In a cultural brand backed by a hypermarket, on the other hand, the manager is more worried: “The novels of Joël Dicker, Guillaume Musso, and even the pockets of April have been rejected. for me they are real locomotives. In addition, it does not require much work. We put them there, people buy them. Without that, and without new records either, or concert tickets for sale, no one has any reason to come here ... "
Too bad for Musso
"If we do this job, it is not to sell blockbusters which, in any case, do not need us," explains Sophie Martin for her part. I prefer to sell twenty different books to twenty people than twenty times the same book. At Place Ronde too, we don't worry too much about not having the new Musso or the new Asterix . "My work is a job of advice and sharing, not just emptying boxes of books," explains Fabienne Van Hulle. In supermarkets of the book, they may be annoyed, but we have other resources. "
7:30 pm it's time for a literary aperitif at Place Ronde and tonight we have a drink with @GrandeLibrairie 🥂
Look who is in the photo there in the middle (and blushes with pleasure) ☺️ pic.twitter.com/1pqLfPbBvg
The booksellers thus hope to take advantage of the very gradual return of their customers to offer them new things, but not necessarily new ones… "During the confinement, on Twitter, I kept a thread of literary aperitif with reading tips . And there was not a single novelty, says the Lille bookseller. There, I deconstructed a lot of old great thrillers from my library, from the 1990s. I'm sure most of the clients would never have read them without the crisis… ”
Haro on literary returns
Could the publishing industries learn wise lessons from the current crisis? Fabienne Van Hulle notes, bitter, “it is only in France that there is this absurd phenomenon of literary return. Outings should be smoothed out all year round, and fewer books should be produced. But the bookseller believes little.
Another fear awaits: that publishers favor, at the start of the school year, blockbusters with “small” books with expected successes more confidential. "The worst part is that we risk having 50,000 useless books on containment, laments the bookseller of Place Ronde. We really don't need that… ”
Economy
Going or not to go back to shopping despite the constraints?…. tell us
Culture
The Goncourt from the first novel was awarded to Maylis Besserie for "Le tiers temps"
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