The sales of books generated by the initiative of August 12 I buy a Quebec book allowed the Hannorak bookstore and the Pantoute bookstore in Saint-Roch to establish new records this year.
“It feels good, because in 2025, on date, the data …”, comments Karine Vachon, director of the Anel.
Thanks to the balance sheet published by the French -language titles bank (BTLF), the Anel is able to observe the sales of books made in 2025 so far.
“What we see on date is a slight slowdown in sales, among others on the side of communities. What we expect by community is sales in libraries and sales to schools, ”reveals Karine Vachon.
“At the beginning of the summer, for example, there were compressions in terms of education that were announced and I think it makes certain schools, for the moment, have slowed the purchases of books a bit. Which is still a little worrying, ”she adds.
The director of the Anel hopes that schools will not have to make choices that will affect the offer of books offered to students.
“Children must have access to a wide variety of books and a renewal also of supply in classes and libraries,” she said.
A context favorable to reading
In 2022, the Quebec Institute of Statistics told us that Quebec had broken a book sales record dating from 2013. We then spoke of the effect of the pandemic and health measures which, in a certain way, created a favorable context for reading.
The data of 2024 seem to show that the population has retained their good habits in terms of reading. In fact, the study published by the Quebec Culture and Communications Observatory (OCC) on Cultural practices in Quebec In 2024 indicated that 23 % of the population reads every day.
But the director of the Anel also believes that inflation has been able to help cultivate the taste for reading, since it is a little expensive hobby.
Moreover, inflation also affected the book market and encourages Ms. Vachon to bring a slight nuance to the record set in 2024.
In the report of the Quebec Statistics Institute, sales are calculated in profits and not in number of books.
Thus, the increase in profits related to the sale of new books can also be due slightly increase in the prices of books that we have known in the last year and which would be linked to the increase in production costs.
Fewer books in supermarkets
This report also mentions that book sales have mainly been generated by bookstores and publishers.
“If there is a sales progression that are made by publishers, it is, among other things, thanks to the participation of publishers in literary events, in book fairs. This is still good news, ”enthuses Karine Vachon.
For its part, the study of the OCC reports that six out of ten people visited a bookstore at least once in 2024.
However, the Quebec Institute of Statistics also tells us that the sale of books in high -store shops has slowed down.
The director of the Anel believes that this slowdown could be linked, among other things, to the increasingly meager offer of books in this type of store.
“We had been informed that some businesses of large areas had been stopped selling books or really reduced the place granted to books,” said Vachon.
“It must be said that large areas of supermarkets, often, what they want is to have a lot of margin on the products they sell and do stock management that is different from that which is finally done with books,” she concludes.
