The SLPJ of Montreuil 2024 in 6 highlights

An anniversary edition that will be remembered. From Wednesday, November 27 to Monday, December 2, the Montreuil Book and Youth Press Fair, in Seine-Saint-Denis (SLPJ), celebrated its 40th anniversary around a rich program on the “General Dream” shared by more 400 exhibitors and some 2,500 authors. This year, 198,000 visitors, or 5,000 more than in 2023, joined this collective utopia, which also included a number of surprises.

• Inaugural power outage and demonstration at Bayard

Compromised by a power outage, the traditional inauguration evening of the Montreuil show, Wednesday November 27, was transformed into a night market lit by magnifying glasses. Although at first the incident did not prevent the professionals from quenching their thirst, they were forced to leave the premises half an hour later. Hundreds of book stakeholders then took to the streets, glasses of champagne in hand and carrying the petits fours distributed pell-mell so as not to waste the large buffets planned by the publishers.

Shortly before their evacuation, the professionals had noticed the agitation reigning around the Bayard Jeunesse editions stand where employees were brandishing a large banner crossed out with the slogan “At Bayard, there is no room for the extreme right.” This protest movement was born in response to the announcement of the arrival ofAlban du Rostu as director of group strategy and development. After a second walkout, Thursday, November 28, in front of the house's headquarters, it finally gave up recruiting the businessman's ex-employee Pierre-Édouard Stérin.

• An edition of Shoot the Book! Extended youth

From the second day of the show, publishers and audiovisual producers met in Montreuil for the third consecutive time under the aegis of Scelf, thanks to its “B to B” meeting program “Shoot the book!” “. This year, the discussions were extended over the whole day with no less than 80 editorial brands represented and nearly fifty producers. They were also able to attend, beforehand, the pitches of a dozen titles selected in advance by a jury of professionals.

• The Culture pass, also a tool for libraries?

While the Minister of Culture traveled last Thursday to Nogent-sur-Marne, announcing, among other things, the protection of a budget dedicated to live entertainment, the Salon de Montreuil hosted, for its part, an exchange entitled “The pass Culture at the service of libraries”. Marine Gauvincoordinator of artistic and cultural education for the Culture Pass, notably recalled the role of the system in the empowerment of young people. For this, the Culture Pass application provides its beneficiaries with an interactive map, “which references more than 40,000 cultural places”.

Among these, the expert counts 1,700 libraries from 750 active municipalities. “We had a little difficulty convincing them of the usefulness of the platform. However, this allows us to be in the sights of nearly three million young people”recalled Marine Gauvin. But also to inform young readers about the different activities put in place by the media libraries, and to invite them to come in large numbers.

• How to better negotiate your publishing contract?

At the dawn of its 50th anniversary, the Charter of Youth Authors and Illustrators unveiled, during a round table on Saturday, November 30, the launch of a youth contract barometer. Designed as a collaborative tool, the system aims to enable better remuneration for authors and illustrators. “It is a somewhat artisanal project which gave rise to the distribution of a questionnaire to our members in order to collect data on three points: the advances, the percentages of royalties and the possible levels” , explained Céline Bénabèsdirector of the Charter, Weekly Books.

To date, 250 members have responded to the questionnaire, which has allowed the Charter to establish an initial observation: artists working on a young adult title obtain, on average, better remuneration than others. With this type of spotlight, the Charter therefore hopes to be able to give more power to authors and illustrators, to better negotiate their contract, on which their remuneration depends. From 2025, the barometer will be accessible on the Charter's website, via the personal space of its members. They will be able to consult it, but also contribute to it anonymously. “It is also about collectively delivering good practices to feed individual negotiations,” concludes Céline Bénabès.

• AI at the heart of creative and societal concerns

The round table devoted to the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on creation brought together a large and diverse audience on Monday morning, demonstrating the ever-growing interest in this hot topic. Among the speakers, Vincent Pianosan award-winning children's author, has expressed concern about the potential replacement of creators by AI, emphasizing the intrinsic pleasure of human creation. Conversely, Vincent Ravalecnovelist and explorer of immersive technologies, defended AI as a tool for creativity, while recognizing the ethical and ecological issues it raises.

Arnaud Robertlegal director of the Hachette group, highlighted European progress in terms of transparency of AI operators, emphasizing the importance of marking generated content. An approach supported by Caroline Lagayette from Google, who presented ongoing efforts to standardize these tools internationally. Finally, Florence Jametteacher at the Estienne school, shared the contrasting feelings of her students: between curiosity and fear of being replaced, future creators demonstrate a pressing need for ethical and practical training in the face of these technologies. A survey presented by the Dagp and the SGDL, organizers of the round table, enriched these discussions by providing concrete data on the authors' perceptions of AI.

• Towards a collective ecology

After awareness, action. Since the Covid pandemic, the book world has tried this by multiplying initiatives in favor of ecology. This is particularly the case of the Association for Book Ecology, created in 2019 and which today has more than 400 supporters. Among them, regional structures of the Interregional Book and Reading Federation (Fill), whose officials led the round table, Monday, December 2, “The ecological book: a collectively accessible dream”. “La Fill networks professionals to move towards more virtuous practices”, commented Marion Cazy, book ecology project manager for Normandie Livre & Lecture.

If certain individual experiments have already been carried out, this time the professionals wanted to pool their efforts. “Because ecology begins with cooperation, the regional book structures have joined forces, in 2024, to offer a collective program of webinars and training”thus indicated Solène Boutoninformation and communications officer at the Fill. In total, around twenty webinars took place this year, the last of which concluded with a behind-the-scenes look at the process of publishing a title, “from tree to book”. From now on, regional structures continue to think about ways to encourage book stakeholders to join these initiatives, via labeling literary events, or re-localized meetings.