The French book industry has taken a step nearer to a long-awaited book tracker in France by creating a company to run it.
Called Filéas, for Fils d’informations libraires, editeurs, auteurs, it has been set up by eight major players in the French book sector, including the National Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l’Edition, SNE), the French Booksellers Association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) and the Permanent Writers Council (Conseil Permanent des Ecrivains, CPE), which groups 15 authors and other creator organisations.
It will develop a portal offering sales figures free of charge to authors and on subscription to publishers and distributors. It will draw on existing tools to create its bibliographic database, and will start with a weekly indicator using data from market research firm GfK. This will be followed by a daily indicator put together from sales information provided initially by more than 700 booksellers.
The system will start operating in 2025, and will be presented at the next Paris Book Festival, which will be held on 11th to 13th April at the Grand Palais, just down the road from the Champs Elysées.
It will give everyone “a better knowledge of the sales of their titles”, and in the future will be a “tremendous decision-making tool for fine-tuning reprints in response to environmental and economic concerns,” said Alban Cerisier, Filéas chair, in a statement. Harriet Seegmuller is director.
