It's impossible to escape it in this winter literary season. On the tables of all bookstores in France, this year we find, at the heads of the gondola, the latest Books by Vanessa Springora, Leïla Slimani, Pierre Lemaître, Lola Lafon or Haruki Murakami, the Japanese author regularly nominated for the prize Nobel Prize in Literature. “These are the most anticipated novels so we can’t not have them,” underlines Mathilde Charrier, bookseller at Rideau Rouge, in the 18th arrondissement of Paris. And then there are all the others, who have gone under the radar and drowned in the mass, who readers will probably never hear about.
Because this January and February return is still very copious, with 507 novels to be published. That is 48 more than at the start of the fall season, when 459 new titles had already landed in bookstores, between mid-August and October. “It never stops anyway, because there are more than 300 new releases every day in all areas combined and more than 68,000 over the course of a year,” continues the bookseller. In twenty years, literary production has indeed boomed with an increase of more than 50% in the number of titles published.
“Get out of the flow and allow yourself to breathe”
On the shelves, it is therefore difficult for readers to find their way among this profusion of books. “We know that the sector is not doing very well with sales falling last year, but we continue to produce more and more books, it’s absurd,” lament Ayla and Solveig, managers of the La bookstore. Night of times, in Rennes. In the industry, tongues are starting to loosen to denounce this overproduction. “We are calling for a drastic reduction,” said Amanda Spiegel, vice-president of the French bookstore union, in June 2024. This would be a very healthy measure for the entire profession, for the environment and for readers.”
If this appeal has so far remained in vain, certain actors have decided to act to stop – or at least slow down – this frantic race for novelty. At the initiative of the association for book ecology, around twenty independent bookstores have decreed a truce on new releases from January to June 2024, to “get out of the flow and allow themselves a breath first, to challenge the inter-profession then”, according to this call for a truce.
Giving meaning to the bookseller profession
The latter took multiple forms in these French and Belgian bookstores that entered into resistance. Some have chosen the radical option by refusing anything new on their shelves, while others have chosen to make “a truce of the superfluous” or to do it in even or odd months, like the Le Rideau Rouge bookstore. A saving break for Mathilde Charrier, keen to give meaning to her profession and slow down to sell better. “And to be able to read better, too, without being paralyzed by the pile of books that are piling up,” she says. This allows us to highlight other publishing houses and work on our collection, which is the identity of a bookstore.”
As we can imagine, this truce in new releases has not only made publishers and distributors happy. “But by talking with them, we realize that everyone shares the observation that we are producing too many books,” assures the young woman. For rebellious bookstores, the risk was also to see their customers change creameries. On the contrary, they sold better than over the same period in 2023, with an increase in sales of 1.7%. “It’s complicated to escape from this system, but it proves that it is possible to do things differently,” rejoices Mathilde Charrier.
-Books destroyed without having been read
Another way of doing things that Ayla and Solveig aspired to, tired of constantly having to unpack boxes and find space in the bookstore for new releases. “A permanent Tetris,” laughs Ayla. “We no longer have time to read even though it is still the basis of the profession to be able to advise and defend these works,” adds Solveig. For this winter literary season, the two booksellers therefore decided to go all out by not ordering any new books beforehand. “We usually prepare for the start of the school year three or four months in advance,” they say. But here, we decided to take our time without putting pressure on ourselves. And apart from the flagship back-to-school books, we only order what we like. We may be taking a risk, but we have regained the curiosity and enthusiasm that we had lost.”
On the tables of their bookstore, only around twenty new releases from this school year are displayed, alongside titles from the previous school year in September. “No one has digested it yet, so it allows these novels to live longer,” assure the two managers, delighted to have broken this infernal spiral. “When we have tasted this rhythm, it is very hard to return to the abnormal,” concedes Mathilde Charrier.
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Employee of the association for the ecology of books, the bookseller also emphasizes that this truce on new releases has an environmental impact. The return rate for new products is indeed considerable, with 62% of them being unsold and therefore going back to the distributor, where they will be destroyed. “We are destroying an astronomical quantity of books with all the waste that this generates,” Ayla and Solveig are furious. It’s the same principle as “fast fashion”: we just throw away and destroy, and it’s time to question ourselves.”
