Usually, it's not like any other day. But what about this year! For twenty-one years, the Festival of Independent Bookstores, part of World Book and Copyright Day, has been held one day per year in 480 French, Belgian, Luxembourg and Swiss bookstores. It should have taken place in April but the Covid-19 changed the game. And rather than turning the page on a blank year, the Verbs Association, chaired by Marie-Rose Garnieri, has moved the meeting to this Saturday, June 13.
The principle is to offer customers who travel on this occasion a small gift. This time, it will be an unpublished book, entitled "In more ways than one" and which is based on an initiative as unexpected as it is original: it proposes, not to read, but to draw. Of the 366 pages constituting a leap ephemeris, 314 are almost blank.
They only reproduce the title of a work from the Folio collection, a few words about the author and a brief summary of the story. It is up to the reader to let go of his imagination and to invent, with his mind and his hand free, the image which he thinks best illustrates this small amount of information. The fifty-two other pages, corresponding to Sundays, were entrusted to the illustrators of Magnier editions.
"I lost 160,000 euros in turnover in two months"
Pretty and intuitive way to restore color to a profession that for two months was caught in the throat by the effects of the pandemic. Because it is no secret that the independent bookstore sector is fragile and that the accounts, immediately in the red, have seen the specter of an epidemic of closings grow.
"I lost 160,000 euros in turnover in two months, confirms Olivier Renaud, at the Petite Lumière brand (Paris, 14th), but I had cash, so I can survive". Adelc (Help for creative bookstores) gives him welcome help and short-time working measures have "saved" him.
“It allowed me to work alone and to open in early May once I had gel and masks. Because as long as I didn't have one, it was not worth playing brave resistance fighters. Olivier resumed understaffing and things are still "complicated" but, like the pretty name of the bookstore, the little light manifests itself well at the end of the tunnel. “The customers are there and they want us to hold on. We have big days. My colleague pointed out to me that we were seeing new faces, especially young people. "
"It restarted very strongly"
Same feeling of renewal for Antoine Fron, of the Librairie "Les traversées" (Paris, Ve), who also owes the Adelc postponements or payment of rent. After a parenthesis of “click and collect” - this system of purchase by reservation on the bookstore site - the recovery was very positive.
“It has restarted very strongly and we continue to have a lot of people. I think we have benefited from our status as a neighborhood bookstore. People are very attached to us and told us when they came back. They ordered many things as if it was a militant act for them. "
Newsletter - The essentials of the news
Every morning, the news seen by Le ParisienI'm registering
Your email address is collected by Le Parisien to allow you to receive our news and commercial offers. Find out more
The publishers themselves have given their hand in their own way by reducing the number of publications but by favoring promising novels, synonymous with big sales. To this immediate strategy is added, Antoine rejoices, the surprise of the Inter Book (Editor's note: Before I forget, by Anne Pauly, ed. Verdier) . “It has been in high demand in recent days. It's a wonderful book that we will sell very well. Another balm.