Writers will finally be able to know their sales figures throughout France in 2025 for free and in real time, thanks to a tool created by publishers and booksellers. The platform was named Filéas and the professional publishing organization announced on Friday December 20 the creation of the company in charge of creating this monitoring tool. It responds to a demand from authors who generally have to wait for a “accountability” annually to find out how many copies they have sold, which leaves them uncertain about their copyright.
Ultimately, when Filéas has reached its potential, a novelist or the author of an essay will be able to see, for example, whether her appearance on television or a controversy on social networks has accelerated the sales of her latest title. Or simply see if it starts better or worse than the previous ones, without having to ask your publishing house.
The beginnings will be modest. Initially, the platform will reflect weekly data, scrutinized in the publishing sector, from the GfK firm (NielsenIQ group), “privileged partner of Filéas”. Considered the most reliable, they are sales estimates based on figures from a panel of booksellers and other businesses that sell books.
Filéas announced in a press release that, “in a second time”he would offer “a daily indicator built from sales data from any player in the sector who agrees to provide them. The data will come from more than 700 bookstores at the start.” The name of these bookstores and their representativeness on the book market have not been specified. The number, however, corresponds to that of the members of the professional organization of independent booksellers, the French Library Union.
The other important players in the book market are the major cultural chains (Fnac, Espaces Culturels E. Leclerc, Cultura, etc.) and websites. The best known of them, Amazon.fr, does not transmit any sales figures to publishers. The American online commerce giant only publishes its overall turnover, all departments combined.
Even without this major player, who according to estimates controls a tenth of the book market in France, Filéas should quickly convince authors. Companies (publishers, broadcasters and distributors) will have to pay a subscription, modulated according to their turnover. The culmination of the project, in the making for years, “seems very important to us. It is also a fantastic sign of solidarity in the sector”noted the president of the National Publishing Union, Vincent Montagne.
Filéas has taken a particular legal form: that of a “mission-based company”which guarantees the pursuit of social and/or environmental objectives. In addition to transparency for authors, the environment is one of the concerns that prompted the sector to adopt this platform. Because the more publishers understand sales, the more they will avoid wasting resources. “Filéas will also in the future be a fantastic management and decision-making tool (…) to better calibrate reprints in particular,” indicates Alban Cerisier, the publisher who was appointed president of Filéas, in a press release.
