Japan: when the book market opens to the West

From art to fashion, design and cuisine, the land of the rising sun has never ceased to inspire France. In the book sector, thanks to manga, it has opened a market that is now essential to the French ecosystem. THE comic book the Japanese style represents half of the purchases of foreign rights… But whether it is in terms of public policies in favor of Books, or practices in bookstores and libraries, France could in turn offer some ideas to Japanese professionals.

Remember that the Lang law establishing a single book price has been emulated throughout the world, including Japan. Today some in the Archipelago are eyeing the recent Darcos law, the aim of which is to protect independent bookstores from the American online commerce giant Amazon.

At first glance, Japan has everything to be a land of plenty editorially – a large industrialized country of 124.5 million inhabitants with a cultured population with a high standard of living (37,000 US dollars per capita, literacy rate of 100%). But its book market has been less flourishing in recent years. In 2023, sales of books and magazines are estimated at 1,596.3 billion yen (10 billion euros), a drop of 40% compared to the peak of 2,656.4 billion yen (16.64 billion euros). 'euros) reached in 1996. Although the electronic publishing market grew by 6.7% from one year to the next, paper declined by 6%.

Franco-Japanese synergies

Colombine Depaireattached for books and the debate of ideas at the French Embassy in Japan, who, with the strength of her dynamic book department team, orchestrated the “Autumn Leaves” festival from October 11 to November 30, says how much “maintaining the network of bookstores and access to books in rural areas as well as in cities are concerns of Japanese book professionals”.

This multi-site show, whose professional program benefited from a partnership with the Foundation for the Promotion of the Publishing Culture Industry (JPIC), invited Weekly Books for a meeting on bookstore events in France and conferences on the French publishing and literary landscape. Enough, we hope, to feed the ideas box of Japanese publishers, booksellers or librarians.

According to the JPIC, the total number of book sales outlets in Japan fell from 16,371 in 2012 to 11,495 in 2022, a decrease of 29.8%. In 2023, 614 closures of bookstores and book sales points were recorded, compared to 92 openings. The Japanese library, for its part, defends itself rather well in a world monopolized by social networks and in an economy of attention where the book object appears as a resistance fighter.

The number of libraries in the Archipelago has continued to increase since 1963, reaching a record number of 3,394 in 2021 (but 3,305 in 2023). A downside: if all large municipalities have a library, 26.7% of towns and villages have neither bookstore nor library (out of a panel of 926 towns and villages, 247 therefore offer no local access to books); moreover, the infrastructures are starting to age due to lack of resources…

Book Meets Next: 300 events across Japan

In an apparently gloomy context, it was with unprecedented determination and increased energy that the JPIC organized from October 26 to November 24 the book event of the Book Meets Next season: around 300 events throughout the territory, involving Japanese and international book players, including the Tokyo Rights Market in the capital where the main Japanese publishers and agents and foreign professionals met.

The JPIC intended to reconnect with a policy of openness to the world previously supported by the Tokyo International Book Fair, which the Covid pandemic had put a halt to… A salutary effort insofar as Japanese publishers remain timid and reluctant to translate.

According to the Japan Book Publishers Association, 66,885 new titles were published in 2022. In a market mainly focused on domestic production, foreign books translated into Japanese represent around 4,000 titles, including an average of 250 titles per year translated from French . But the enthusiasm, observed by us during our reporting in Tokyo, on the part of Manami Tamaoki the director of Tuttle Mori, the oldest of Japanese literary agencies, bodes well for good prospects.

Thomas Piketty or Mona Chollet are already translated… The Japanese edition of Our Lady of the Nile of Scholastic Advancement has just been released thanks to the French Copyright Office (BCF), the agency representing Gallimard in Japan. The interest cuts both ways. As proof: the bookstore phenomenon in the non-fiction category with Less ! of the very prominent declining philosopher Kohei Saitotranslated at Seuil.