While Kevin Lambert multiplied his selection for prestigious literary prizes in France in September for his novel “Que Notre Joie Stay”, his Quebec publisher Héliotrope announced that his books would be distributed in Europe next January.
Posted at 7:00 am.
Until now, the Montreal house had done business with a foreign agency that managed the transfer of rights to publishers interested in publishing books from its catalog on European territory (e.g. “Le Nouvel Attila” for the three novels by Kevin Lambert). ).
“Entering sales is an ambitious challenge that must be carefully assessed. That’s why we took the time,” explains Florence Noyer, General Director of Héliotrope.
After many of its authors were published by French publishers, the Montreal house decided that the rights transfer model no longer suited it. “The biggest disadvantage of transferring rights, in my opinion,” continues Florence Noyer, “is that we cannot defend all the titles in our catalog.” »
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Florence Noyer, General Director of Héliotrope Editions
Publishers may be interested in an author’s title, but not necessarily their entire work. And our approach is to have an author policy; All of our authors accompany us from book to book and we build a line. With the transfer of rights, we no longer see that line at all and it seemed important to us to stay in line with what we do here in Quebec.
Florence Noyer, General Director of Héliotrope
In fact, in the case of a transfer of rights, the publisher (e.g. a European publisher) acquires from a house in Quebec the publishing rights for a book in order to republish it on its territory, with a different cover and in the colors of its house; It then covers the costs of production, printing, logistics and advertising. On the other hand, in order to see its own books in European bookstores, the Quebec publisher must work with a European distributor who will take care of all the logistical part of the process and take care of opening the market doors.
Take the plunge
Ten years ago, Quebec fiction publishers were rare in distributing their books directly in Europe. We found them mainly in children’s books, in comics and in essays. However, according to Dominique Janelle, there was curiosity about Quebec literature. At book fairs in Paris, Brussels and even Geneva (where Quebec was guest of honor in 2017), she saw people leaving with stacks of books. “I went into bookstores and asked them why there were no Quebec books even though they were so popular at the Salon,” recalls the woman who, since 2009, has been in charge of international development at Québec Édition, a committee of the National Association of Book Publishers (ANEL), dedicated to promoting Quebec and French-Canadian publishing abroad.
In this context, in 2015, together with the Librairie du Québec in Paris, she founded the Tulitu bookstore in Brussels, which at the time was the only one in Europe where you could stock up on literature from Quebec.
Little by little, the publishers overcame the logistical hurdles and ventured into distribution. In 2018, La Peuplade and Mémoire d’encrier were among the first in fiction to distribute 100% of their catalog in Europe. For Simon Philippe Turcot, general director and co-founder of La Peuplade, “you had to be everywhere” to be able to reach a wider audience, he admits.
Five years later, the two publishers believe they have succeeded in their bet. At La Peuplade, the copies destined for the European market (identical to the copies sold here) are now printed directly in France, to arrive in bookstores the day after publication in Quebec. And the company’s sales are now greater in Europe than in Canada. For example, Dominique Scali’s novel “Sailors Don’t Know How to Swim” sold almost 17,000 copies in Europe and 10,000 in Canada. Two of his books from the Chicoutimi House were also selected for prizes in France this fall: Louis-Daniel Godin’s novel “The Account is Good” for the Wepler Prize – Fondation La Poste and “To My Brother”, a translation by the Finnish EL Karhu , in the first selection of foreign Medici.
PHOTO FRANÇOIS ROY, THE PRESS
Simon Philippe Turcot, general director and co-founder of La Peuplade publishing house
This is a development that was not easy. You must be present on site. At the beginning I went to France every five weeks.
Simon Philippe Turcot, general director and co-founder of La Peuplade
Since then, La Peuplade has had a sales manager, Julien Delorme, who carries out ongoing local work with booksellers, the media and festivals. Mémoire d’encrier also has an office in Europe to manage its press relations, in addition to the regular travel of the members of its Montreal team to meet players in the industry. “These meetings are very valuable because we have forgotten that literature is about human experiences,” emphasizes Rodney Saint-Éloi, founder of the house.
Different strategies
Although the list of Quebec publishers distributed in Europe continues to grow – La Peuplade, Le Quartanier, Les 400 Coups, Mémoire d’encrier, Écosociété, La Montagne Secret, La Pastèque, Lux Éditeur, QuébecAmérique since last fall and now Heliotrope – some always have no intention yet of taking the plunge like Alto. “I’ve already had the beginnings, but the French temptation is still not there,” testifies Antoine Tanguay, president and publishing director.
As a team, we decided to work with an agency that has always worked very well with us. We said to ourselves: We will concentrate on our market and leave it to the French publishers, who know the market much better than we do, to defend our authors.
Antoine Tanguay, President and Publishing Director at Alto
Antoine Tanguay adds that he could never have competed with the promotional work of the publisher Philippe Rey, who published in Europe the novel by Éric Chacour “Ce que je sais de toi”. “Philippe organized meetings with Éric in more than 600 bookstores. You have to ensure a physical presence on site and I can’t do that. »
However, the Quebec publisher benefits because the transfer of rights allowed him to negotiate a percentage of about 10%, which is divided between the author and the publisher after paying a share to the agent. “Every sale of the book will certainly benefit everyone. And the morning of the Renaudot announcement [lorsque Ce que je sais de toi s’est retrouvé dans la première sélection du prix]“I had hundreds of orders,” he claims.
Élodie Comtois, editor at Écosociété and president of Québec Édition, points out that each publisher has different strategies for export. “These are investments that a publisher decides to distribute. Écosociété has been distributed in France since 2005, but in 2018 we switched to Harmonia Mundi, which gave our representation even more weight. »
Sales is also about reviewing certain practices, she adds. For example, at La Peuplade we ensure that the books are ready much earlier; On the Écosociété site we focus more on the titles. “We will guard against major misinterpretations; We won’t intentionally use a word that French speakers don’t understand from the first second, because that can be really harmful. But this problem, this desire for the police that we saw at a certain time, no longer exists at all,” emphasizes Élodie Comtois.