David Ducreux now directs the Royat-Chamalières Book Fair. He refined the 11th edition with high standards and a new format limited to 50 authors but all of them will speak during meetings.
At the beginning of October, the 11th edition of the Royat-Chamalières Book Fair will be held at the Casino Partouche. David Ducreux, who is now responsible for programming and managing the event, has seriously changed the format. While remaining general public, this show has refocused on literature with fewer authors, many more meetings and debates and increased comfort for guests and the public.
Olivier Perrot: David, you studied letters and philosophy at the University of Clermont, worked at France Bleu pays d’Auvergne then you left for Paris. What have you been doing all these years?
David Ducreux: I worked in publishing for almost 25 years and during the last years at Gallimard, I was responsible, among other things, for the trade shows. I have seen a lot of them, I accompanied authors almost every weekend to trade fairs all over France and abroad. So I saw how this kind of demonstration takes place.
OP: Back in Clermont, you are general secretary of the Alexandre Vialatte prize and now programmer of the Royat-Chamalières Salon. What was your perception of this meeting?
DD: I knew that the Royat-Chamalières show was a good show, but that it was buried among others and had a little difficulty existing at the national level. The initial idea was to define a line much more clearly because there are many generalist salons and those that work well are those that have a clear line, often in the human sciences. In reality, when we are working on the novel, we very quickly become generalists because we cover a multitude of subjects.
OP: When you accepted the mission, you clearly stated the intention of making it a literary fair. What did you have in mind?
DD: When I said that the ambition was to make it a literary fair, I was thinking of the whole range of literature not necessarily in terms of genre, even if we have a bit of science fiction and a bit of Thriller . But I was aiming for literature that was more popular and more general public in the good sense of the term and at the same time, novels or stories that were a little more demanding with authors who also had ambition and demands on form. The idea was to mix all of this to be on a line aimed at the general educated public, people who are used to reading but who are not, however, specialists in nuclear physics. We are at the beginning of October, the idea was to have authors from the literary season, which was already somewhat the case.
OP: Precisely at this time you have to know how to work together a little to schedule a show.
DD: We have quite a lot of competition because on the first weekend of October alone, there are a total of 8 book fairs. Some are more important than that of Royat-Chamalières, already in terms of seniority but also in number of invited authors, sometimes up to 250 or 300 over two days. So to stand out rather than competing to get as many people as possible, we tried to work on quality. The quality of welcome obviously with the idea that a happy author, well received and with a smile is an author who will come back and who will be happy with his weekend… this I learned in my previous position.
OP: Did this force you to review the format of the show?
D. D: What happened before, with 80 to 100 authors and around ten meetings for around ten authors, was that the majority of guests only signed. I visited the show last year and was a little frightened to see that the authors were almost sitting on top of each other, even if the image is a little exaggerated. I started from the principle that all invited authors should be treated in the same way and that all guests should benefit from a meeting. The show starts on Saturday noon and closes on Sunday evening, we have a little more than 24 hours, less at night obviously and we have to limit it to 50 authors. This also gives more general comfort to the event, allows for more resources to develop the quality of reception and above all to better highlight all the guests.
OP: So how did you work out the distribution by issuing the invitations?
DD: We have authors published in national and Parisian houses most of the time. This is half of the programming and allows us to keep up with the news. The other half is made up of a youth-teen section and regional publishers, but always following the line of general literature. The editions De Borée or Revoir which are present are only with novels.
David Ducreux programmed with a little rigor, but not too much
Olivier Perrot: Authors are increasingly demanding remuneration when they are on promotional tours. Have you taken this step forward?
David Ducreux: Yes, we decided to pay the authors. All of this is a very strong commitment from the municipalities, the Casino and all of us, to support the book industry. It is quite simply a real help to authors, which is a little symbolic but which has the merit of existing. In addition, we offer a meeting to each of the authors, often in pairs, sometimes alone or in threes, but face to face is the majority with a moderator who is there to facilitate the exchange.
OP: By limiting to 50 guests and with your requirements, you have no fear of losing visitors who would find that the show has become crowded?
DD: I don’t know if we can use the word sharp because in reality we have authors like Michel Bussi, Cécile Coulon who are very well known, authors like Pierre Rofast and Frabrice Rose authors from Clermont or the region who have been touring for a certain number of years, we also have authors like Olivier Bourdeaut, Bartabas, Cédric Sapin-Defour… it’s anything but elitist. Aurélien Bélanger, who is in the news for the start of the school year, presents a book with a slightly more demanding threshold but it remains for the general public. It’s a nice program, with a little demand but not too much. I think the public will totally relate to it, I have no fear. What we also created was a somewhat dedicated youth space by reorganizing the space, with drawing and watercolor workshops open to young and old. It’s really the idea of opening up to a wider audience. In fact, we imagine gaining audiences more than losing them.
11th Royat-Chamalières Book Fair, Saturday October 5 and Sunday October 6, 2024, Royat casino. Complete program and list of 50 invited authors to discover on the show website
