€37.71 million in Literature ebooks sold in 2023, this represents 14.51% better than last year. However, the genre still only represents 6.01% of total sales, far behind Academic (13.83%, for €41.03 million) and the unbeatable Professional/University (44.52%, for 185. €9 million).
However, the latter is down 4.61%, “ particularly due to the decision taken by certain public or international organizations to switch their publications to open data », analyzes the SNE. On the contraryromance has greatly helped sales climb in the Literature category.
As for the catch-all section (youth, comics, practical, documents and news, etc.), called General Public Edition, it fell by 1.28% to reach €18.37 million.
Brackets and channels
These €283 million from digital publishing represent 10.1% of the total turnover of publishers – €2.796 billion, a slight increase of 1.16% due to the fact that the unit price of books increased by 2 .6% in 2023. Let us not forget that the number of copies fell by 1.96%, going from 448.5 million copies to 439.7 million.
Without making a distinction between downloading and streaming, the SNE points out that 28.6% of ebook sales are made by these two solutions. On the other hand, bouquets and portals, through subscriptions and sales of content use licenses, represent 69.7%.
It remains to be seen who are the readers who buy on physical media (CD, DVD or USB key), because they represent 0.7% of sales and application enthusiasts – 0.9% of sales.
The evolution of the upcoming webtoon
For the year 2024-2025, the SNE is also launching a call for participation, to obtain statistics concerning the webtoon. The business models of different platforms vary, but they all rely on reader impatience. The first chapters are generally offered for free, then you either have to wait to continue reading for free, or buy digital tokens (orcoins) to access the following episodes.
The SNE has updated its digital questionnaire by integrating the webtoon format to obtain an initial measurement of this phenomenon. However, the low number of responses received does not allow an assessment of this market to be made. The union strongly encourages publishers to provide their data concerning the webtoon during the next statistical survey in 2025, covering data from the year 2024.
Words fly away, words fail
The same for the Audiobook: with only a dozen respondents “and the absence of certain market players in the sample“, it is difficult to provide reliable data. The 13th edition of the Barometer on the use of printed, digital and audio books reveals that 5 million French people have listened to at least one physical audio book and 4 million to a digital audio book over the last 12 months.
The profile of these listeners is young, male, and big consumers of digital content such as SVOD, social networks, online videos, video games and podcasts. They are also very present on social networks. CSP+ and families with children are also strongly represented among audiobook listeners, whether physical or digital.
This trend is supported by the rate of French people owning digital devices and connected speakers, as well as by the dematerialized format (MP3), which facilitates listening on the move or with multiple activities, particularly on smartphones.
Circular factors, such as the confinement periods of 2020 and 2021 and the implementation of the Culture Pass, have also accelerated the development of listening to audio books, with many purchases having been made by young readers aged 18 and more.
Photo credits: ActuaLitté, CC BY SA 2.0
