(AFP) – They started as book lovers, became literary influencers, and some published their own books.
“100 books that change life” were published on Thursday by Jouvence editions. Author’s name on the cover: “Maïté Defives from the blog MademoiselleLit”.
She is not the first. And the most beautiful journey is that of Agathe Ruga, a trained dentist, first known as a literary blogger under the pseudonym Agathe The Book, who became a novelist, at Stock then Flammarion.
“Thanks to one of my columns on Instagram, an editor that I had already met contacted me,” she told Cosmopolitan magazine in 2019. “She really liked my column and she said to me: if one day you write, or if you have a writing project in progress, don’t hesitate to come to me”.
Audrey Tribot, aka Le Souffle des mots, was one of around 250 authors signing at the Montaigu 2024 Printemps du livre festival, in Vendée.
This YouTuber with 118,000 subscribers then published “My reading notebook”, published by Marabout. In other words, a book to allow everyone to record their favorites, reflections, “reading challenges”, etc.
“I had a lot of curious people who didn’t know anything about it, and found it a cool concept,” she told RCF radio, a partner of the event.
– “Conversion rate” –
The primary target is subscribers – subscribers, essentially.
“We’re talking about conversion rates,” a sector expert told AFP, speaking on condition of anonymity. “If an influencer has 100,000 subscribers, and 5% of them buy her book upon release, that’s already 5,000 copies sold.”
The “100 books that change lives” are being launched in 5,000 copies.
The influencer’s book is easy to promote: the author just needs to tell his subscribers about it and build suspense before its release. The model in this area is Léna Situations (today 4.7 million subscribers on Instagram), and her “Toujours plus” (published by Robert Laffont) published in September 2020.
Nearly 300,000 copies were sold in the first three months. This represented a “conversion rate” of around 10%, for one of the bestsellers of the year.
MademoiselleLit is riding a more modest wave: the contemporary novel, which she highlights on Instagram.
“We often see selections of classics to have read in one’s life. I defend French and foreign literature today,” she told AFP.
With a clear penchant for realistic stories and social issues. “I am someone committed, environmentalist, feminist,” she explains.
– “Commercial collaboration” –
In its selection, “King Kong theory” by Virginie Despentes or “Ce que je sais de toi”, by Canadian of Egyptian origin Éric Chacour, rub shoulders with “L’Amie prodigieuse” by Elena Ferrante.
Audrey Tribot, 26, and her, 38, have different backgrounds. The first, from adolescence, knew that she wanted to work around books. The second had a career in banking and insurance.
Maïté Defives lived in Madrid eight years ago and didn’t have many people with whom to talk about books in French on a daily basis. “I discovered (the hashtag) Bookstagram. And I was immediately won over,” she remembers.
Her social media accounts and blog have become her full-time job. It receives proposals from publishers for content resulting, as the law requires it to mention, from “paid commercial collaboration”.
“I’m not a literary critic. I’m a columnist and I speak from my heart,” she says.
And this activity is increasingly recognized. Tuesday, on the occasion of the announcement of the four finalists for the Goncourt Prize, one juror, Camille Laurens, praised the work of the influencers.
“Social networks talk a lot about books. There are a lot of sites, a lot of platforms, online bookclubs,” she said happily. Probably unaware that her 2017 novel, “The Little Dancer of Fourteen Years,” was one of MademoiselleLit’s 100 favorites.
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