Noting that the Covid-19 pandemic "has generated a silver lining for the French book business," the Bookseller reported that 2021 sales by the 405 members of the observatory of the French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française) rose by 20.4% over 2020, and by 24.3% compared to 2019. Observatory outlets represent more than half of the approximately 3,000 independent booksellers' sales in France, according to Anne Martelle, SLF president and co-director at the Martelle family bookshop in Amiens.
December sales in 2021 were down 14.6% compared to a year earlier, but up 21% against 2019. Martelle noted that sales figures had been abnormally high at the end of 2020 after the second Covid-19 lockdown, when there was "an explosion" of demand.
The French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l'Edition) does not have final figures for 2021 yet, but director Pierre Dutilleul said that publishers' sales for December were down in 2021 from 2020, and were about the same in 2019. Full-year sales in 2021, however, "rose by some 20% from 2020 and 18% to 19% from 2019," he noted. "We have never seen such a huge increase since the beginning of the century."
One surprising development during the pandemic has been the revival of French people's enthusiasm for reading and books as objects. "This has been a revelation, and is continuing," said Martelle. "Customers' pleasure in looking at and touching books is still more intense than it was before the pandemic began. I never expected this to happen."
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Nielsen reported an estimated 5% increase in units sold and 3% gain in value for 2021 in the U.K., "with the year the first on record to surpass £1.8 billion [about $2 billion], and the market's highest volume sales since 2011," the Bookseller reported, adding: "While this marked the second year that Books & Consumer Survey data was used to fill in lockdown gaps, Nielsen were clear that 2021 showed 'books are not a pandemic fad,' estimating 212.6 million books sold for £1.8 billion across the year as a whole. Comparing 2021's available 42 weeks to the same period in 2019, the fiction and nonfiction categories hit 10-year highs, with children's books setting a new all-time record."
Fiction sales increased by 20% compared to 2019, with 26 of the 46 available weeks up by more than £1 million (about $1.3 million). Crime & thriller titles sold 2.6 million more books and brought in £16 million (about $18 million) more than two years ago. The graphic novels: manga category more than doubled its sales against 2019 and graphic novels recorded a lifetime high. Nonfiction categories mind, body & spirit and personal development hit record highs, and leisure & lifestyle's 2021 sales were second only to the year of the adult coloring book in 2015.
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The Irish book market "defied the pandemic in 2021 to chalk up its highest-ever revenue since accurate records began," the Bookseller reported. Sales last year hit €165.9 million (about $187 million) through Nielsen BookScan's Irish Consumer Market, an increase of €400,000 (about $451,520) over the previous record in 2008 and an increase of 3% on 2020. In addition, 13.3 million units sold, the third-best return after 2008 and 2010.
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Winter got you down? Posted by the Booksellers Aotearoa New Zealand on Facebook: "We love a good window display. The Dorothy Butler Children's Bookshop is looking as blue as the summer skies!" The Auckland bookseller had noted earlier: "Cosmo the Octopus looks out at the world from the window at 1 Jervois Rd as he strums his uke and welcomes you all back to the #dorothybutlerbookshop for another year of good books!" --Robert Gray