Véronique Cardi, CEO of JC Lattès, speaks with Publishing Perspectives editor-in-chief Porter Anderson in the October 17 Executive Talk at Frankfurt Studio, the Publishing Perspectives Forum. Image: Publishing Perspectives: Johannes Minkus
By Eric Dupuy | @duperico
Freelancing Influencers
The French publishing market mirrors an hourglass, with fewer books selling more copies while numerous titles struggle to find readers.
This structural challenge defines contemporary publishing in France, according to Véronique Cardi, CEO of Hachette Livre’s JC Lattès, who outlined the industry’s pressures and innovations during an Executive Talk at Frankfurter Buchmesse on October 16.
The concentration of sales around blockbusters creates the primary challenge for midlist titles.
“Sales in France and in other countries are like an hourglass,” Cardi noted: “more and more books selling less and less and fewer and fewer books selling more and more.”
Yet France benefits from structural advantages absent elsewhere.
The fixed-price law for books ensures a network of some 3,500 bookshops nationwide—700 in Paris alone—allowing publishers to nurture debut voices where other markets can’t sustain them, Cardi pointed out.
Literary prizes amplify these efforts substantially. The 2024 Goncourt des lycéens award to Sandrine Collette’s Madeleine Avant l’Aube exemplifies this mechanism. Initial sales of 70,000 copies reached 250,000 following the prize, positioning the title consistently on bestseller lists.
The rentrée littéraire, the concentrated September-October publishing season, tries to compound these tensions. Five hundred books release simultaneously when French readers return from their summer breaks to work—a paradox that places titles under intense scrutiny during a period of limited consumer attention. Despite increased competition, literary prizes create promotional opportunities unmatched in markets lacking such institutional recognition.
Gender diversity in publishing and readership gaps present emerging concerns.
In France, “boys aged between 16 and 19 spend seven minutes on reading a book and five hours a day on screens,” Cardi said.
Publishers increasingly explore targeted strategies to reverse this trend.
“Literature role-playing gamers (“RPG”) is dedicated to boys and men playing video games,” she said noting JC Lattès‘ adoption of this emerging category alongside video-game advertising placements for thriller titles—reaching audiences unlikely to enter bookshops through conventional channels.
The Dan Brown Code
The Dan Brown campaign for his new The Secret of Secrets illustrates how established publishers adapt to contemporary marketing demands while maintaining midlist support, Cardi said.
With readers anticipating his first novel in eight years—an unprecedented publishing gap—JC Lattès executed a three-stage promotional strategy.
For the first time, JC Lattes invited influencers to travel with members of the press to Prague, following locations featured in the narrative while receiving personalized interactions and cocktails referenced in the text. A final Paris event featured Brown performing piano compositions from the forthcoming Netflix series adaptation.
This approach reflects publishers’ recognition, she said, that influencers resist controlled messaging.
“Influencers are crucial,” Cardi acknowledged, “but they don’t want to be influenced by and controlled by the publishers.” Instead, companies must “offer them genuine experiences,” which guided JC Lattès’ Dan Brown campaign strategy.
The promotional effort also emphasized reading’s cultural value alongside traditional media. Advertising slogans positioned books as equally immersive to television series: “The book that will put your TV series-watching on hold”—a deliberate counteroffensive against entertainment platforms fragmenting readership.
Event Marketing for Books
Beyond blockbuster marketing, JC Lattès pioneered sensory reading experiences targeting broader audiences. Musical reading tours with French singer Olivia Ruiz and fragranced readings for Paul Richardot’s olfactory thriller Fragrancia expanded literature’s appeal beyond conventional bookshop discovery.
These events attracted demographics unlikely to venture independently into retail spaces, Cardi pointed out, subsequently driving both physical and international sales across 10 countries. Sequential television adaptations further boost original book sales, as demonstrated by renewed interest in Alexandre Dumas following film and series adaptations.
Digital-format adoption in France lags comparable markets, she said, although momentum accelerates. Audiobook releases now coincide with physical editions rather than following delayed schedules.
Author-read audiobook editions prove particularly valuable—Feurat Alani preserved authentic pronunciation of Arabic terminology central to his narrative set across Iraq and the Soviet Union during the 1970s.
The possibility of synthesized celebrity voices, while technically advancing, risks diminishing the human element distinguishing premium audio productions.
English-language book imports present an unexpected challenge. French influencers increasingly promote original English editions over translations, viewing originals as more prestigious. Booksellers now dedicate shelf space exclusively to untranslated English titles. This trend forces simultaneous publication coordination between translation and original-language releases to prevent readers from circumventing French editions entirely.
Artificial intelligence remains positioned for marketing applications rather than editorial functions, she said.
Cardi recalled testing AI summarization of Sandrine Collette’s manuscript, asking the system to identify the narrator.
“The robot didn’t understand that who was the narrator of the first part because there’s a narrative twist, which makes all the flavor of this reading,” she said.
When questioned, the AI confidently misidentified the protagonist.
“Definitely, a human reader is still useful to consider manuscripts and to work on the text we want to publish,” she said.
Recent publishing on AI itself frames algorithms as “moving walkways” that, while accelerating processes, risk standardizing creativity by “sending us all in the same direction, at the same speed.”
These interlocking challenges—midlist sustainability, reading demographic shifts, simultaneous global publication, digital format integration, and artificial intelligence’s role—define the contemporary French publishing landscape.
JC Lattès’ multifaceted response suggests established houses increasingly function as experiential curators alongside traditional publishers, adapting strategy across marketing, retail, sensory engagement, and technological implementation.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the French market is here, and more on book marketing is here.
More on Frankfurter Buchmesse, its events and people, is here.
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