Paris Book Market hailed a success as thousands of meetings held and new publishers attend for first time

Last week’s fourth annual Paris Book Market more than met expectations for organiser Claire Mauguière. The two-day event, held in central Paris on 5th and 6th June, encompassed 3,800 meetings between French language rights sellers and foreign buyers. This compared with 3,600 hosted last year by France Livre, which promotes French publishing abroad and has just changed its name from the Bureau international de l’edition française (BIEF).

One novelty this year was cooperation between the Netherlands’ own rights meeting on 4th June, allowing Dutch buyers and sellers a seamless switch to the French event the next day.

Whether the two will coordinate their dates next year is open to discussion, said Mauguière, who joined the BIEF in 2008 and created the book market four years ago, adding: “The partnership certainly had logistical advantages for both sides.”

Another novelty was the first-time participation of Tunisia as a seller, with five French-language imprints or houses. The total of 270 Francophone sellers also included nine from Quebec, seven from Switzerland, three from Belgium, two each from Lebanon and Algeria, and one from Morocco.

On the other side of the 150 negotiating tables, split between two locations in the Marais district of Paris, were some 260 foreign buyers, some of them looking after two or more sectors, Mauguière said.

This broke down into 175 for general literature, 140 for humanities and social sciences, 80 for children’s, teen and YA titles, 80 for comics, and 50 for practical, fine arts and coffee table books.

As for buyer nationalities, Spanish and Italian publishers were in the majority with 30 houses each. Germany and the UK came next with 20 each, and China followed with 10. Others included North and Latin American, Indian, Japanese and Egyptian. The UK showing was stronger than in previous years. The 20 houses compared with 14 in 2024, seven in 2023 and eight in 2022.

Mauguière noted in her pre-event speech that the aim was to give a preview of titles slated for release when kids go back to school after the summer holidays, and to help young publishers take their first international steps alongside larger established groups.

It is impossible to quantify the number of contracts coming out of the event, but in view of the interest shown by buyers and their positive comments, it was clearly worthwhile for many, if not all participants, she added.