The Syndicat national de l'édition (SNE) has just published the figures for publishing in 2020. For the organization, the book industry in France has shown an "exceptional resilience" in this year marked by the health, social and economic crisis.
In 2020, publishers' sales amounted to 2740 million euros, a moderate decline of 2.3% compared to 2019. The number of copies sold over the year was 422 million euros.
The SNE emphasizes that this decline appears to be all the more contained in view of the closure of physical sales outlets during periods of confinement.
« The closure of bookstores for three and a half months could have been a disaster for our sector, but the exceptional rebound of the summer and the end of the year 2020 testified to the unwavering support of the French for books and booksellers, commented Vincent Montagne, President of the SNE.
Big differences between the editorial segments
While some publishing segments have declined, such as how-to books (-7.2%), art books (-36%) and tourism books (-59%), others have grown strongly.
Comic books increased by 6% (driven in particular by manga, whose sales rose by 29%), after-school books by 7% and youth books by 1%.
General literature, which the SNE points out is the leading publishing segment by value with a 22.4% market share, increased by 2.4%. Health books also increased (+7.5%), as did cookbooks (+15.8%).
The digital publishing market, all media and editorial categories combined, generated revenues of ?263.6 million, an increase of 13.5% over 2019, reports the SNE.
« The figures for the 2020 edition reflect the lives and concerns of the French people during this period of health crisis: the need to read to learn, to understand, to homeschool, to entertain, to cook "
Decrease in production
Finally, the health crisis has had a strong impact on publishers' editorial production, which has fallen from 107,143 titles published in 2019 to 97,326 titles in 2020, a 9.1% decrease. Production in terms of numbers of copies, meanwhile, fell by 11.6%, from 516.8 to 456 million copies between 2019 and 2020.
