Spiced up with erotic scenes, stories of blue flowers between a white goose bewitched by a man who is often mad and sometimes violent, but which end well, have the main quality of boosting the figures of French publishing. According to the latest study by GFK NielsenIQ, this literary genre – called “new romance” – represented 1.8% of books sold in 2023, or 6 million copies. And a turnover of 75 million euros.
After a decline observed between 2015 and 2020, this segment is evolving wonderfully, having more than doubled compared to 2022. The offer is enriching and finding its audience, both adults and teenagers. It is also worth noting a particularity of this study: the extreme concentration of this market in the hundred most popular titles.
To the point that five authors, the French CS Quill, Emma Green (pseudonym of a duo of novelists) and Morgane Moncomble, the Algerian Sarah Rivens and the American Colleen Hoover – who enjoy an absolute following on social networks – can boast of selling from 200,000 to more than 1 million copies of each of their works. the film AnymoreAdapted from Colleen Hoover’s book of the same name and released in theaters on August 14, it should further boost sales of this best-seller.
“Growth will be sustainable,” Arthur de Saint-Vincent, deputy managing director of the main market player, Hugo Publishing, an extremely profitable subsidiary (with 10 million euros of net profit in 2023 for a turnover of 42 million, according to accounts filed with the Paris Commercial Court) of the publishing house Glénat, wants to believe. The director is convinced that “If the publishing house only publishes for the highest socio-professional categories and is only interested in a microcosm, it will die in a few years.” Hugo Publishing points out, according to him, “95% female audience, which now starts at 15 and no longer at 18, due to the combined effect of the romance craze on TikTok and the use of Culture Pass [300 euros versés aux jeunes à partir de la 6e pour acquérir des biens culturels] “.
Huge marketing machine
The huge marketing machine put in place by Hugo Publishing is perfectly oiled, between the New Romance Festival, an annual event that brings together the world’s elite of authors and their most avid readers – whose eighth edition will be held from 1Ahem on November 3 in Lyon – and, above all, the writing platform Fyctia, which has 200,000 members. It is in this group that the company discovers its young authors. They continue writing their story as soon as they receive enough “likes” at the end of each chapter. A radical way of testing readers before publishing something new…
You have 61.28% of this article left to read. The rest is reserved for subscribers.
