The Bookstore Observatory unveils the sales of its panel of bookstores for the year 2019. At the national level, bookstores recorded sales of "good results" in 2019.
Bookstores recorded a 7.1% increase in sales for the year as a whole (+3% in cash, either in immediate payment and +23.8% for forward sales or deferred payment, generally for communities, libraries, etc.).
It should be noted that the reform of secondary education, half of which is sold by booksellers, had a strong impact on their business: excluding school books, the increase in bookshops' sales was +2.3% (+2.6% in cash and +0.8% in forward sales).
However, this trend varies greatly from one territory to another: 70% of bookshops selling school books benefited from this increase.
The first four departments account for 63% of bookstore sales (72% in 2018, the difference being linked to the cyclical growth of school books this year).
General literature led the way with 20% of sales in value terms (+1.5), driven by French literature in large format (+7.2%) and novels in pocket format (+5.8%).
In second place were children's books, which accounted for 16% (+1%) of bookstore sales, followed by social sciences and humanities at 14% (4.1%) and comic books at 13%, which posted the strongest growth at +7.4%, with 55% of sales made up of titles released in 2019 (see "Books for Young People") 2019, a great year for comics ).
