Among the many challenges facing the book business in France is the rise of the secondhand book trade, which publishers and observers point out has evolved from a marginal exchange between readers into a mature, sophisticated market that competes with new books.

By Sebastian-Raul Pavel, Contributor

The French book market is often presented to us as an aspirational model: a country where “culture” continues to represent a political and social stake for the state, where books are not treated as mere commodities, and where authorities possess the capacity to protect and support cultural industries, particularly the publishing sector.

However, the technological, social, and consumer transformations of the past decade have placed pressure on the traditional book market model, its architecture, and, inevitably, the relationships that structure it. For several years, the French book market has been going through a difficult period, and this hardship should raise a series of questions.

For instance, whether the fixed price, in a context marked by inflation and rising fixed costs, places excessive pressure on bookstores; whether there is a structural flaw in how publishing houses operate, namely the tendency toward overproduction; but also whether we should abandon a few overly convenient answers: that screen time is the primary source of the decline in reading, that the printed volume inherently represents an exceptional cultural object, or that there is an intrinsically “correct” way to consume culture.

The Secondhand Market

Among all these tensions, the expansion of the secondhand book market has become one of the most debated symptoms of the book market’s struggles, as it directly challenges the relationship between cultural protection and the market’s economic sustainability. In France, the book market has been stagnant for about a decade; average print runs fall year after year, and secondhand books already account for nearly a fifth of all purchased books and almost 10% of total turnover.

In 2025, the subject exploded within the publishing world, triggered by the publication of a report by the Ministry of Culture, in collaboration with the French Society for the Management of Authors’ Rights (SOFIA). The report revealed that one out of every five books purchased was not new. Between 2014 and 2022, the number of new book buyers fell by 1.2 million according to a Kantar study, and by 3.5 million according to GfK, while secondhand book buyers increased by 1.9 million.

In general literature, literary titles represented 54% of the secondhand market, compared to 28% of the new book market, and in 2022 it was estimated that one out of every three novels was bought secondhand. For crime fiction, it was one out of every two.

In some sub-segments, secondhand sales have grown much faster than new book sales: in young adult fiction, used copies grew by 137% between 2018 and 2022, compared to just 7% for new releases; in the children’s book segment, the increase was 157%, while new release sales dropped by 21%. For publishers, these data points are a clear sign that the secondhand market does not merely coexist with the new book market, but seems to be gaining ground at its expense.

These transformations have been facilitated by the rise of online secondhand book platforms, which force us to step away from the imagery of the dusty old bookshop, filled with collapsing stacks of books and populated by grumpy, irascible booksellers. Today, the secondhand book trade is part of a well-organized economic circuit fueled by massive donations, platformization, and algorithmic sorting and pricing tools. The bookseller is no longer necessarily a professional dealing in rare or niche books; increasingly, they are warehouse operators or individuals reselling through a platform.

Precisely because of this, the rise of secondhand books is perceived by publishers not only as an economic pressure but also as a destabilization of the traditional processes of creation and distribution.

A Solution?

The French publishing world is now conducting an intense media and lobbying campaign on this topic. In 2026, the French Publishers Association met with German publishing representatives to jointly discuss what can be done at the European level.

Why at the European level, and not the national one? Because publishers want copyright royalties applied to the sale of secondhand books, but European jurisprudence does not allow it. The European Copyright Directive stipulates after the first legal sale of a book within the EU, the author can no longer control or monetize subsequent resales of that physical copy.

In 2025, the French State Council issued an advisory opinion on this matter. The French state is exploring the possibility of reclassifying this remuneration as a resale right (droit de suite), a concept that already exists in the visual arts field across many European countries: for example, a painter or sculptor can benefit financially if the value of their work increases and it is subsequently resold.

The European Court of Justice has clarified that this “droit de suite” does not constitute payment for a service, but stems from the legislator’s intent to correct an economic imbalance between different categories of authors. From a legal standpoint, the main challenge lies in reconciling such remuneration with the principle of exhaustion. Some legal analysts suggest that a resale right for secondhand books could, in principle, be compatible with the exhaustion of rights, as long as the obligation remains purely pecuniary and tied to the resale price, without hindering the transfer of ownership.

But this legal reasoning is not likely to persuade the European Court of Justice, especially since it would affect not just books, but most physical cultural goods like CDs, vinyl, and other products.

Meanwhile, Rachida Dati, the French Minister of Culture, has proposed an alternative to publishers: a differentiated VAT rate of 10% for the sale of secondhand books (instead of 5.5% for new ones), or the establishment of a mandatory voluntary contribution, to be determined by a sector-wide agreement. Both proposals, however, were rejected by publishers.

Concerns

While the primary concern has been the fear that new books are being cannibalized by secondhand sales, another argument invoked by the heavyweights of the publishing world (and the one most likely to be taken up by policymakers) is that resale is no longer a marginal exchange between readers, but a repeated and industrialized economic exploitation of a copyrighted work. It is often carried out by platforms and resellers who monetize the editorial value initially created, without contributing to the costs of creation, editing, promotion, and risk.

For publishing houses, this is a matter of cultural equity: in a fragile new book market, where average print runs are falling and author incomes are already under severe pressure, the fact that the same book continues to generate transactions without any remuneration for the creator and publisher appears to be an unfair capture of value. From a competitive standpoint, secondhand actors often source their inventory through donations or library weeding” (désherbage), meaning their acquisition cost is near zero. This allows them to charge very low prices and compete directly with the new book market.

There is, however, opposition to this framing of the issue. On one hand, few studies statistically confirm that a significant portion of total new book production is being replaced by secondhand purchases. Then, there is almost no discussion about the fact that for many consumers, purchasing a secondhand book is driven by ecological motives, not just economic ones. And last but not least, few in the publishing industry are discussing the issue of overproduction, a situation that has been going on for several years and has given rise to an environmentalist movement among French independent bookstores, who are now refusing to automatically receive every new editorial release.

Nevertheless, the pressures in the French book market are high and the consequences of a growing secondhand market in France are already visible. In April, the bookshop chain Gibert Joseph (16 bookshops), entered in insolvency procedures. The plan is to completely pivot to secondhand books, which already represented a quarter of their total sales in 2025.

And on May 26, it was the Nosoli Group (with a total revenue of 158 million euros in 2025), which owns the chains Furet du Nord (18 locations, among them the third largest bookstore in France) and Decitre (9 locations, with an average surface of 900 square meters), as well as the wholesaler La Générale du livre.

 

Sebastian-Raul Pavel has worked as a bookseller, bookstore manager, and currently curates foreign-language titles for one of Europe’s most beautiful bookstores. He holds a PhD in Communication Sciences, with a dissertation exploring the history of the Romanian book market.