Guillaume Musso during the presentation of "The girl from Brooklyn" in 2016 - F.Andrieu / AgencePeF.Andrieu / AgencePeps / SIPAps / SIPA

  • New novels by Guillaume Musso, Joël Dicker, Bernard Minier, John le Carré and Elena Ferrante will soon be available in bookstores.
  • Small and medium-sized publishers are worried about this tendency to favor "best-selling" and the race for novelty.

Will the biggest book sellers alone save the publishing world? This is the gamble made by publishers who bet on a handful of bestsellers to revive a sector on the verge of suffocation after two months of confinement. The reopening of bookstores since Monday has finally struck the hour of joyful reunion between books and their readers but does not erase the deep crisis in which the publishing world is plunged. The coronavirus epidemic has affected the entire book chain. The booksellers had to lower the curtain on March 17, but publishers and distributors also suspended their activities and the recovery is taking place drop by drop.

To give oxygen to booksellers, many of whom are facing a debt wall, the publishers have all decided to reduce their production. For years, the issue of editorial overproduction has been a sea serpent. In 2018, according to figures from the legal deposit of the National Library of France (BnF) more than 82,000 titles, or 225 books per day, were published. For the months of March to June alone, a total of 5,300 new releases and new editions were on the publishers' program. The coronavirus epidemic has stopped this avalanche.

First outings on May 28 at Gallimard

The publishers' programs for May and June underwent a severe weight loss. The other side of the coin, the first victims of this diet are the novelists and the so-called "demanding" works. The publishing house Delcourt has announced "le coeur tight" that its new collection of French literature dubbed "Les avrils" will finally be launched in January 2021. The first two titles in this collection whose launch was initially scheduled for April 8, then June 3 were first novels.

At Gallimard, the first outings will take place on May 28 and, initially, the home of Antoine Gallimard intends to put on sale works promised to success but which suffered from being published just before confinement. This is how we can find on the booksellers' books the latest novel by Leïla Slimani, La maison des autres  or the latest story by the Nobel Prize winner JMG Le Clézio, Chanson bretonne . The publisher relies heavily on the latest book by Italian Elena Ferrante, La vie mensongère des adults , in bookstores on June 9, to make up for some of the considerable losses in its turnover.

Avalanche of books for the general public

For the post-containment, the heavyweights are called upon to the rescue of the main publishing houses. Maison XO publishes Bernard Minier's new thriller, La Vallée, on May 20. Calmann-Lévy launches on May 26 (400,000 copies) Life is a novel by Guillaume Musso, on May 27 readers will find the new book by the Swiss Joël Dicker, The enigma of the room 622 (editions of Fallois), also printed to 400,000 copies and on May 28, place at John le Carré with Return of service (Threshold).

Many publishers have so-called “general public” books in their bags. Thus, on June 3, Actes Sud will publish Femmes sans mercie , the new title of the Swedish crime queen Camilla Läckberg while on June 17, Flammarion will propose The Flambeur of the Caspian , a new investigation by Aurel the consul, the created character by Jean-Christophe Rufin.

Beware of "best-selling"

Small and medium-sized publishers are worried about this tendency to favor "best-selling" and the race for novelty. We must "slow down the race for novelty, which sees a considerable number of texts starting with the pestle without having had time to reach readers," said in a column published on April 28 in Humanity several dozen houses. independent edition.

In a "call to readers" launched this week, 113 independent houses warned against "an overproduction, harmful to the environment and which floods bookstores, drowns a quality editorial production, more daring but less visible, shortens more and more the life of books, intensifies the returns and the shelling of unsold works. "

"Publishing less" means accepting the fact of "having more bestsellers", an essential condition for keeping a large publishing house afloat, replied Olivier Nora, boss of Grasset, in an interview published in Le Monde dated Friday. “There are still too many rapidly obsolete books. This is where we must prioritize our efforts to be less lavish in the future, "he conceded.

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  • Coronavirus
  • Culture
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  • Gallimard
  • Literature
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