French books are trending

French books exports are gaining momentum. According to the French Union of publishers, the volume of translations achieved in 2015 has improved by 2.3% compared to 2014. Comic books and books for a younger audience are top of the sales.

Translation rights transfers are healthy

The 2015 figures confirm the trend: French publishing is getting better and better worldwide. After an impressive 6.6% spike between 2013 and 2014, the number of contracts for translation rights transfers concluded by French publishers with their international counterparts has improved by 2.3% between 2014 and 2015. Over 12,000 contracts of this type (accounting for an overall total of 680 million euros) have been registered by the French union of publishers during the year 2015, from 11,300 in 2014. This is excellent news for the French publishing industry, first cultural industry in France: rights transfers account for 20% of turnover.

Books for kids lead the way

Books for kids are the most popular internationally: the "Kids" category accounts for 3,600 title rights transferred, "Comic books" for 2,900 and "Novels" for 1,900. The three categories totalise over 2/3 of rights transfer contracts concluded in 2015.

"La septième fonction du langage" ("Seventh Function of Language"), by Laurent Binet, is one of the most successful title. The novel was published by Éditions Grasset, and tells the story of a fictive police case in political and intellectual intelligentsia in the early 80's. The novel accounted for 23 right transfer contracts abroad. "Asterix and the Missing Scroll" ("Le papyrus de César"), Asterix and Obelix's latest adventure published by Éditions Albert-René, was also long expected in France. As best sale in France in 2015, it was published almost simultaneously in about twenty languages worldwide.

French, second most translated language in the world

According to the French union of publishers, the main translation languages from French are Chinese, Italian and Spanish. In each of these languages, over 1,000 contracts were concluded in 2015. German and English follow right after. These 5 languages alone accounted for half of the contracts. On the other end of the equation, English, Japanese, German, Italian and Spanish were the languages most translated into French in 2015.

French is second most translated language worldwide, and it inspires a promising and abundant literature. In 2017, France will be guest of honour of the Book Fair in Frankfurt, biggest international professional fair dedicated to acquisitions and right transfers.

Photo © Éditions Albert-René