“It’s a necessary evil,” explains Daniel Bertrand, managing director of Groupe Bertrand Éditeur, which publishes novels and biographies for the general public.
Why evil? “Because resources are increasingly scarce. The price of paper is skyrocketing and we try to roll as tight as possible to avoid the pestle. »
Why “necessary”? “We always want to print what we think we can put on the market, keeping a stub for possible restocking [réapprovisionnements]but that remains speculative,” replies Mr. Bertrand.
Very clever the editor who never missed the target.
Excess inventory from publishers, if given away left and right, would risk drowning the Quebec book market and devaluing authorship, industry players agree.
Tons of new works therefore inevitably end up in a container, for lack of buyers. “There is a pedagogical issue”, underlines Tania Massault, general manager at Éditions Alto and president of the Special Committee on Book Ecology of the National Association of Book Publishers.
When you tell people that a book is destroyed, there is an intense reaction. It is a cultural object that has a very strong emotional value. There is a great misunderstanding.
Tania Massault, President of the Special Committee on Book Ecology of the National Association of Book Publishers
Heartless, publishers? “It’s the least fun business in the world to have to destroy books for which we are financially, emotionally and creatively committed”, rectifies Marc-André Audet, founder and boss of Les Malins editions, accustomed to success in bookstore.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
The National Association of Book Publishers is conducting a pilot project with the Rolland company (Sustana) to upgrade the pestle to make new printable paper.
Paper shortage and printing cost
Faced with the shortage of paper, haven’t publishers been tempted, in the last year, to increase print runs, in order to avoid possible delays in reprinting?
“Certainly,” agrees Mr. Bertrand, whose publishing house oversees Les Éditeurs Réunis and Les Éditions JCL. But we don’t do it blindly. We must constantly tighten our strategies to avoid the pestle, because it’s a vicious circle: we print more, we have less paper, we have less paper, we want to print more. »
PHOTO MARCO CAMPANOZZI, PRESS ARCHIVES
Marc-André Audet, founder and boss of Les Malins editions
The cost of producing a book has skyrocketed, mainly because of the price of paper. It has risen more in 3 years than in the previous 25 years.
Marc-André Audet, founder and boss of Les Malins editions
Obviously, having 5,000 copies of a book printed rather than 500 leads to an economy of scale. But still it is necessary to sell them… “The industry is very tempted to increase the prints so that the Excel tables show that the ratios are good”, notes Mr. Audet, of Malins.
For this reason, he expects “a lot of pestle” in the next few years. This mass pestle could wipe out publishers’ savings along with the books that pass through it.
A poorly quantified phenomenon
The ultimate decision to sacrifice “dormant” stock rests with publishers, but it’s the distributors who carry out the pestle.
In France, more than 140 million new books are recycled each year, according to a study by the Societal Analysis Office for Citizen Information and data from the National Union of Publishers.
And in Quebec? Impossible to know precisely, since no organization compiles this potentially explosive data. Distributors are “very cautious” with regard to the subject, explains Tania Massault. For two years, she has been trying to obtain reliable data, in vain.
About a third of new books sent to bookstores in Quebec will be returned to the sender, according to data published by the Observatoire de la culture et des communications in August 2021.
According to our calculations, therefore, 5 to 10 million new copies returned to distributors’ warehouses in 2020 after spending a few months with a retailer. How much of that inventory ends up in paper bales? In France, it is 60%, according to the National Publishing Union, which brings together some 700 publishing houses.
Although these ratios are lower in Quebec, we can easily deduce that the new books destroyed there each year amount to millions.
“It makes me think exactly of food waste,” says Karel Mayrand, director general of the Quebec Common Front for ecological waste management. We overproduce so as not to be short, but that inevitably leads to losses. The literary field is no exception. »
Marketing strategy
“The more you are a mainstream publisher, the greater the marketing effect. If, during the marketing, I have a stack of six books in a bookstore, I will perhaps sell four, notes Mr. Bertrand, of Groupe Bertrand Éditeur. But if I had had four copies, I probably wouldn’t have sold all four. All six were needed; that does not mean that the other two will end up in the pestle. The pile must be larger than what is reasonably expected to sell. »
The pestle especially awaits books “which have an extremely fast pace of life”, explains Anthony Glinoer, professor at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences at the University of Sherbrooke. The specialist in the history of books and publishing cites as examples the biographies of stars and collections of recipes.
PHOTO EDOUARD PLANTE-FRÉCHETTE, LA PRESSE ARCHIVES
As with newspapers, flyers and all other types of paper and cardboard, excess inventory from publishers also ends up in recycling plants.
Some practical books disappear from bookstores after two, three or four weeks. They appear en masse because, indeed, there is a marketing strategy on the part of publishers and bookstores. It is often the books that are pounded in case of failure.
Anthony Glinoer, professor at the Faculty of Letters and Human Sciences of the University of Sherbrooke
Betting on the “stack effect” is less and less interesting, also notes Nadine Perreault, general manager of the distribution company Diffusion Dimedia. “Editors tell me that production costs have increased by 25 to 40% in one year. You have to have very strong backs to overproduce. »
A unique marketing system
Under the office system, specific to the French-speaking market, a predetermined number of books are transported by distributors to numerous points of sale throughout Quebec. After a few months, usually four, bookstores choose to buy or return unsold books and get a refund. To obtain “accreditation” from the Government of Quebec – which gives access to assistance programs and sales to institutions – bookstores must hold a “minimum stock of 6,000 different titles, i.e. 2,000 books published in Quebec and 4000 published elsewhere than in Quebec”. Retailers, regardless of their location and their target customers, are notably forced to hold hundreds of titles in the categories “scientific and technical books”, “human or social sciences” or even “popular science”. Although it favors the pestle, “it is also this law that makes it possible to offer literary quality and quantity throughout Quebec, which is exceptional in view of the population”, explains Nadine Perreault, of the distributor Diffusion Dimedia. “The majority of governments are in this spirit: we must make culture accessible. »
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- 29%
- Percentage of books returned to sender by bookstores for the years 2016 to 2019. This percentage is 37% for “discount superstores” (Walmart, Costco, etc.) and 40% for “other retailers” , either department stores, pharmacies, hardware stores or newsstands.
Source: Culture and Communications Observatory