In its fifth year, the Paris Book Market welcomed more than 330 international publishers and a first-time guest of honor program, yet another sign of its growing success.

By Olivia Snaije, Contributing Editor

Having carved out its place in the publishing calendar in early June, this year’s edition of the Paris Book Market (PBM), which ran June 5-6, marked the event’s fifth birthday and its first time hosting a guest of honor.

Organized by the French publishing network and the recently rebranded France Livre, more than 330 international publishers from 50 countries came to Paris and collectively attended nearly 4,700 meetings. The Netherlands (which has been actively participating in book fairs in recent years, including as the 2025 guest of honour at the Salone Internazionale del Libro Torino) served as the PBM’s first guest of honor, in partnership with The Dutch Foundation for Literature.

Held just before the opening of the PBM, France Livre also runs a fellowship program for 15 international publishers who then stay on for the event. This year’s fellows included publishers from Europe, Brazil, Armenia, and North America.

Finding Its Place

Many publishers, and not just Europeans, have recently been finding value in smaller-scale book fairs such as Torino, Gothenburg, and Istanbul, and the PBM—an entirely professional event—has definitely joined this category. The event is free for foreign publishers, with France Livre even covering accommodations for over 100 publishers. French and Francophone rights sellers (Switzerland, Belgium, Québec, Luxembourg, North African countries and occasionally Lebanon) rent their tables inside one or two locations in Paris’ Marais neighborhood.

“The PBM’s reason for being is the same as that of France Livre’s—to showcase French publishing abroad,” said Claire Mauguière, who runs the PBM, even though some foreign publishers grumble at the emphasis on buying translation rights from French and Francophone publishers (which fair organizers have made clear from the start). Nevertheless, the event’s increasing numbers since 2022 (when there were 85 meetings, and 160 foreign publishers) suggests that, grumbling aside, the PBM is growing, thanks to what publishers say is a combination of factors.

“It’s a book fair that’s on a human scale and the timing is great,” said Juliette Ponce, of éditions Dalva, where she publishes ten books a year, half in translation. “We’re already in the spirit pitching our new fall titles, the physical books are ready, and we can give publishers copies. Plus, the ‘hot books’ of the LBF have already passed us by, and Frankfurt’s ‘hot books’ have yet to come.”

James Tookey of Peirene Press took time out of his busy June during which he also administers the upcoming The Orwell Prizes for Political Writing and Political Fiction, to attend the PBM for the first time. Tookey agreed that the timing was just right, quipping that “the gap between London and Frankurt is long enough so that you can forget why you didn’t read a book.”

Tookey met with French publishers such as Gallimard and Grasset, with whom he might not meet at the London Book Fair or Frankfurt, where he prioritizes meeting publishers coming from farther corners of the world, and where Gallimard and Grasset might be meeting with larger publishers, he said. He added that he would definitely return—the PBM is an easy trip for him coming from London.

Meet me at the Café

Coming from much farther afield, Hisako Murakami, an editor at the Japanese generalist publisher Anonima studio in Japan was at the PBM for the first time as well. Anonima publishes 3-5 books in translation each year, and Murakami said that she particularly loves French books, mostly (but not only) buying rights to children’s books from publishers such as Helium and éditions MeMo.

“I can check catalogues in Japan, but I find talking to people more interesting,” Murakami told Publishing Perspectives. “My meetings in Paris have been very focused.”

There was also an emphasis this year on Bandes Déssinées (BD)/comics at the PBM that gave 100 international comics publishers a chance to catch up on new titles following the cancellation of the Angoulême International Comics Festival  earlier this year.

Marleen Seegers, of 2 Seas Agency represents worldwide foreign rights for the BD/comics publisher Morgen, and saw continued interest in Jade Koo’s Terre ou Lune (Earth or Moon). Seegers has been coming to the PBM from its first edition. Although based in California, she represents over ten French publishers for world rights and is a subagent for French agents and publishers.

Seegers has seen the PBM evolve over the years.  “It’s definitely become a lot more serious on an international level,” Seegers said. “They’ve done an incredible job communicating and becoming visible on an international level.”

When the PBM’s scheduling platform opens each year around 2 p.m. Paris time, Seegers said she now has to set her alarm for 4 a.m. California time, otherwise schedules are already booked by the time she wakes up.

Seegers, who is Dutch, also represents Dutch publishing houses as well as U.K. and U.S. publishers. She and her colleague, Chrysothemis Armefti, found themselves in several locations at this particular PBM. Although 2 Seas exclusively represents publishers, Armefti was also selling foreign publishers’ titles to French publishers, which meant she could not access the official PBM locations—only agencies representing French and Francophone publishers who are members of their respective publishers associations, and this year, publishers with the Dutch Foundation for Literature, are allowed to rent tables within the PBM.

Seegers, therefore, was in the PBM location selling rights for French and Dutch publishers while Armefti took appointments in the Café de la Poste, a few meters away, where agents representing authors (or foreign publishers) set up shop, along with the Croco du Marais café where six agencies were present as well as international scouts.

Because of the PBM’s growing international success, French literary agents and scouts, determined not to lose out on the important presence of foreign publishers, set up in cafés in a 500-meter radius of the PBM. Foreign publishers navigate meetings between the PBM as well as the two cafés. While slightly baffled at the exclusion of literary agents, most publishers took the meetings in stride and some said they enjoyed getting in a short walk in between the locations. As James Tookey put it, the agents “have made the best of it.”

While a non-issue elsewhere, literary agents in France are still regarded with suspicion by some publishers. The larger, more established publishers have well-oiled rights offices which have traditionally seen literary agents as encroaching on their territory.

Laurence Laluyaux, head of RCW International in London, represents at last ten French authors, including the best-selling Jean-Baptiste Del Amo who is published by Gallimard and Stock. Her first time at the PBM, she set up at the Croco du Marais to meet foreign publishers in between meetings with her authors and their French publishers.

Laluyaux, who was recently announced as the winner of the 2026 Ottaway Award from the Promotion of International Literature, said that there are an increasing number of French publishers collaborating with agents. She gave the example of her author, Laura Vazquez, published by Éditions du Sous Sol. “It’s going incredibly well, in a highly intelligent way,” Laluyaux said. “The person who benefits is the author. It’s a true collaboration, we work with the same vision, the same continuity…”

Synergy

Roxane Edouard, an agent with Curtis Brown in London, was also at the Croco du Marais—although this was her third time at the PBM.  Some 80% percent of her authors are French, Edouard said, making the PBM “almost more useful than London or Frankfurt for my French titles.”

She added that she saw her author, Marie Pavlenko’s Dutch publisher, De Bezige Bij at the London Book Fair in March, who made an appointment to meet her at the PBM.

Edouard said she wished there were more synergy between literary agents and French publishers. “Ultimately, we’re all working towards the same goal: the global reach of the French language—there is such a plethora of Francophone authors,” she said. “We’re moving in the same direction—there’s no reason to undermine one other.”

For the ever-increasing number of foreign publishers coming to Paris for the PBM, whether they are in the official location or at a café, it doesn’t really matter, they say—they are happy to be in Paris for the quality of their meetings: An informal survey taken by the PBM among foreign attendees revealed that 93% said they became familiar with publishing houses they hadn’t known about before, and 82% said that translation projects emerged following their participation in the PBM. Such figures speak for themselves.