Nearly 80 years after its creation, La Maison du livre, in Rodez, continues to fulfill its role as an independent general bookstore for all of Aveyron and beyond, with a team combining a spirit of service and skills. Interview with one of its two directors, Emmanuelle Belle.
Can you remind us of the history of the bookstore?
The Maison du livre was created by Father Émile Sudres in 1946, rue Louis-Blanc. In 1959, it moved to Passage des Masons and supplemented the general and religious literature offering with sections of school books, children’s literature and pocket books. Danielle Dastugue took over the bookstore in 1983 and created Éditions du Rouergue in 1987.
In 1990, with the support of Roger Cartayrade and friends of La Maison du livre, she launched a major project to renovate the store, providing nearly 600 m2 of sales area. At the beginning of 2002, Benoît Bougerol became the new owner of La Maison du livre. In 2008, a second bookstore was created on the site of the former Family cinema. This new space made it possible to accommodate the children’s, comics, science fiction, games and stationery departments.
In 2013, La Maison du livre took over the Privat bookstore in Toulouse. Ten years later, when Benoît Bougerol retired, Amandine Pinson and I took over management of the bookstore and separated from Privat to make La Maison du livre completely independent again.
It’s been over a year since you took over the reins. Has the challenge been met?
I joined the bookstore for a summer job in the school section in 1991. I ended up staying there for ten years before moving into animation, then becoming assistant director and now director. So I know the bookstore and how it works, our customers, the city, the associations, the libraries, the schools… However, it was a big responsibility to take the helm of this Ruthenian institution.
I teamed up with Amandine Pinson because we complement each other: she manages all the administrative and accounting aspects, and I manage the rest, particularly customer relations and human resources. I see us as couriers: we have been given a bookstore which has a history and which is attached to its independence, we must preserve this soul in order, when the time comes, to pass it on in our turn.
La Maison du livre is the only bookstore in Rodez since the closure of Mot à mot, which was located on rue Saint-Cyrice, in 2017. Are times tough for your sector of activity?
Today, La Maison du livre is the main bookstore in Occitanie after Ombres Blanches in Toulouse and Sauramps in Montpellier. We are alone, ideally located in the heart of the city, at the crossroads of the city’s different museums, but we must not rest on our laurels.
A bookstore is not a business like any other. People who have money don’t invest in our sector! Our margins are low and we have to face big competitors against whom we do not have the means to fight. The only way to do well is to make this place a pleasant, friendly place and to create a bond with our customers to build their loyalty. Our booksellers are there to present their favorites, give ideas or reading advice.
“We are aware that there is a public that does not have access to reading”
Since the start of the 2019 school year, the “quarter hour reading at school” system aims to encourage students to read, at school and outside of school. What do you think?
We are aware that there is a public that does not have access to reading, that feels uncomfortable in a bookstore and thinks that it is reserved for an elite of intellectuals. I see it with teachers who order books from us for their classes: some parents are setting foot here for the first time.
Our role is to welcome them and show them that we are open and accessible to all. This is also why we organize free events to try to reach everyone (reading snacks for toddlers, literary prizes for teenagers, literary breakfasts and readers’ prizes for adults, meetings and signings with authors …).
Despite these advantages that make independent bookstores like yours so charming, do online sales sites like Amazon still represent a threat?
We have loyal readers who only buy from us. But there are also people who shop around and can buy both in supermarkets and on the Internet.
It is the publishers who set the price of the book. Our margins are low: they depend on the discount they are willing to give us. The Lang law of 1981 establishing a single book price in France clearly saved bookstores. We can discount up to 5% but we cannot increase prices.
We fought against Amazon which was shipping at €0.10. Now, I believe there is a mandatory minimum of €3. For us, it costs €7 to send a book by post. To remain competitive, we have set up a flat rate of €5.90, but this means that we lose money with each shipment. A book costs on average 20 euros, if you read three or four per month, that represents a budget.
We notice that with inflation, people prefer to wait until books come out in pocket format, which is more financially accessible.
Have digital and audio books found a place in the market?
When digital books came out, we told ourselves that paper was dead. And then ultimately, it remained a parallel, occasional practice, especially when people travel.
Our customers remain attached to the book object, to its smell, to the act of turning the pages… And then it has been shown that reading on screen is not imprinted in the same way in our heads.
Do you think the population reads less than before?
Reading takes time. And having time means making choices. We easily spend 15 to 30 minutes on the screens of our smartphones, scrolling on social networks without realizing it. This is time that we could devote to reading but it requires a little effort.
