The comic book market - France

1.2 The growing global market

The global comics market (***) was worth $**.** billion in ****, and is expected to grow at a CAGR of *.*% between **** and ****, reaching $**.** billion by the end of the period.

evolution of the global comics market World, ****-*****, in billions of dollars Source: ****

Geographical distribution is fairly uneven, withAsia-Pacific accounting for **.**% of the market, North America **.**% and Europe **.**%.

The global market is driven by growth in Asia and the popularity of manga. There are also cultural differences between regions, with a preference for manga in Asia and comic books in North America. However, both genres are increasingly exported.

Globally, the digital market has exploded following the COVID-** crisis, and by **** it will account for **% of sales, compared with **.**% in ****. Source: ****

1.3 The French market is doing well

In the publishing sector, the comics market stands out for its extremely dynamic growth in both volume and value.

sales trends in volume and value France, ****-****, in millions of euros and copies sold Source: ****

In ****, the most dynamic segment is Manga, with growth of *% compared to ****. Sales of children's comics are down **% on ****, due to the publication of an Asterix album in **** and not in ****. Genre comics sales are down *% on ****. Comic book sales remain stable in ****. [***]

Comics account for **.*% of the book market by volume.

1.4 Bookstore closures during confinement

The comics market was heavily impacted during the confinement with the closure of bookshops. As a result, e-commerce took over as the main distribution channel, and many releases were postponed.

Book publishing sales index France, ****-****, index base *** **** Source: ****

Book publishing in the broadest sense saw a **.*% drop from March **** compared with ****. The drop in sales reached **% in April, before a catch-up began. Despite the boost provided by e-commerce and digital editions, the publishing industry had to cope with a significant drop in activity, notably due to the postponement of new releases. *,*** titles were postponed (***). [***]

The Fnac site has seen its e-book sales increase by ***% and its e-reader sales double.

In June ****, sales were **.*% higher than in ****. **.*% of postponed releases were in May and **.*% in June, boosting the sector's dynamism.

2.1 A younger, more affluent clientele than for other literary genres

A higher proportion of comic book buyers are in the CSP+ bracket and have children than for other literary genres. This is primarily due to the fact that comics are aimed at a younger audience than literature. **% of comic book purchases in **** involved parents buying for their children.

Furthermore, men represent **% of purchasers, compared with only **% for books and literature. Lastly, people from higher socio-professional backgrounds accounted for **% of buyers in ****.

Comic book buyers are younger than for other genres, with an average age of **.* (***).

age of comics buyers, compared with other literary genres

France, ****, in age Source: ****

age of readers by comic type

Manga

Manga attracts a younger clientele, with **% of readers aged between ** and **, and **% under **. Purchases are slightly more evenly distributed, however, as very few under-**s buy their own manga, and parents are therefore over-represented as buyers. [***]

Comics

Comics readers are divided between the **-** and **-** age groups. **% of readers belong to the former and **% to the latter, making a total of **% for the **-** age group. [***]

Genre comics

Genre comics appeal to an older audience, with **% of readers and **% of buyers over **. [***]

Heritage comics

Heritage comics seem to appeal to a much wider audience, with ...

2.2 Reader motivation and consumption habits

There are several criteria for choosing a comic book, and different factors can influence consumers. On average, there are *.* selection criteria.

Younger readers give priority to the characters (***).

Choice criteria France, ****, percentage of comics readers Source: ****

The decision to buy a comic book takes place both before the point of sale and on the spot at the last moment. Readers aged between ** and ** are more spontaneous, with **% deciding to buy a comic book at the point of sale, compared with **% of *-** year-olds. This may be explained by the financial independence of the former, who are freer to make their own choices.

Time of purchase decision France, ****, as a percentage of comics readers Source: ****

**% of French people do not buy books in bookshops. According to the Centre National du Livre, the reasons why they prefer to find other ways of buying books are as follows:- They don't have a bookshop near them- Bookshop prices are higher than elsewhere- The books they want are not in stock

Reasons why the French don't buy their books in bookshops France, ****, in percent Source: ****

In addition, there are a number of reasons why people don't read comics, including competition from other leisure activities, ...

2.3 Digital as the future of the sector?

Digital comics account for an ever-increasing share of the market, and have become an integral part of consumers' reading habits.

Thus, **% of *-** year-olds and **% of **-** year-olds also read comics in digital format. However, comics in paper format are still in the majority, with **% of *-** year-olds and **% of **-** year-olds continuing to read in this format.

Reading habits in paper or digital format France, ****, as a percentage of comics readers Source: ****

There are several different media for this type of reading. Tablets and computers are the most popular, with a slight preference for tablets among *-** year-olds and a preference for computers among **-** year-olds.

Preferred media for reading digital comics France, ****, as a percentage of comics readers Source: ****

2.4 The cyclical nature of demand

Demand for comics is particularly strong in the run-up to Christmas. According to Gfk, December accounted for **% of annual volumes of comics sold in ****. Summer is also a key period, with June, July and August accounting for over **% of sales volumes. We can see these trends again by analyzing the Google Trends index between **** and ****.

The Google Trends index confirms these trends, with peaks in searches for the term "comics" in the run-up to Christmas.

The graph below represents the proportion of searches for a given keyword in a given region and for a specific period, compared with the time when the rate of use of this keyword was highest (***). Thus, a value of ** means that the keyword was used less often in the region concerned, and a value of * means that the data for this keyword is insufficient. for information, the value *** was reached in the week of December **, ****, and is not shown on this graph for reasons of legibility.

Frequency of "comic strip" searches France, ****-****, in Google Trends index Source: ****

The year **** being a bit special, a second peak was observed in April, in the middle of a lockdown, when people tended to order more on the ...

3.1 The comics value chain

Authors and illustrators are at the start of the value chain, creating the work that is then passed on to publishers. Publishers take charge of book production, selecting the comics. They then subcontract the printing, and market the titles to distribution networks. The aim of distribution is to promote the titles to retailers. This activity can be internalized or subcontracted. The main distributors are subsidiaries of major publishing groups Distribution handles all tasks relating to the physical circulation of books and the management of flows. Here again, the main distributors are subsidiaries of major publishing groups Wholesalers buy books from publishers for resale to retailers. Retailers are the stores where you can buy comics, such as bookshops, but also specialized superstores (***) and hypermarkets and supermarkets. They either sell directly to individuals, or to organizations such as libraries, which then allow the books to be borrowed.

According to the French Ministry of Culture, **% of the price of a book goes to the publisher, **% to manufacturing, *% to distribution, **% to distribution, **% to the point of sale, and only *% to the author. [***] The figures are not dated, but give a good indication of how the price of a comic book is distributed.

3.2 Comic book publishing

The comics publishing market is constantly evolving, and albums from the same series are not all published by the same publisher. For example, the Asterix volumes were first published by Dargaud, before moving on to Hachette and Editions Albert René. Lucky Luke comics also passed through Dupuis, Dargaud and finally Lucky Comics.

Media Participations

Media Participations is a Franco-Belgian publishing group that owns the Blake et Mortimer, Dupuis, Dargaud, Kana, Le Lombard, Lucky Comics and Urban Comics publishing houses. It will achieve sales of *** million euros in **** (***) and sold ** million comic book albums in ****, out of a total of ** million books. [***]

Dargaud is the group's main French subsidiary. It owns the Blake et Mortimer publishing house, which publishes only the works of E.P. Jacobs(***), and others.

Dupuis is a legendary Belgian comics publisher with titles such as Les Tuniques Bleues, Cédric, Spirou, Gaston Lagaffe, etc.

Kana is a Belgian subsidiary of the group dedicated to manga publishing, with titles such as Naruto and Hunter Hunter.

Le Lombard publishes Thorgal, Ducobu and Les Schtroumpfs comics.

Delcourt Group

Groupe Delcourt is a major comics publisher in France, with titles like Les * terres and Donjon Zénith, comics like The Goon and ...

3.3 Comic book distribution channels

In terms of distribution, small bookshops remain the segment with the highest concentration of sales, ahead of specialist superstores such as Cultura or Furet du Nord. Hypermarkets and supermarkets remain a minority distribution channel. The graph below shows the purchasing habits of the French, with all the different channels tending to complement each other: some books are bought in bookshops, others in supermarkets or on the Internet.

Distribution channels for comics France, ****, in percent Source: ****

Large bookstores include chains such as Gibert or Decitre (***), a Lyon-based bookstore with sales of **.* million euros in ****. [***]

E-commerce, which is not the place of purchase that most readers use, is one of the leading distribution channels in terms of volume, and is expected to account for an ever-increasing share of sales, posing a real threat to independent bookstores. France's leading e-commerce book retailer, Amazon, meets a real demand from consumers in terms of accessibility (***). It also offers a much wider range of products, with over **,*** results for the "comics" search, compared with ***,*** for all works in the largest bookstores. [***]

To combat Amazon's omnipresence, online bookstores are being developed. Bubble is an online sales site for comics, comic books and manga that enables independent booksellers to ...

3.4 Authors struggle to make their mark

The comics industry takes on very different realities for each author, depending on their popularity. According to SalaireMoyen, the average salary for comics authors was **,*** euros in ****. These figures need to be put into perspective,however, as salary inequalities are very high among artistic professions, and these figures are taken fromINSEE data/ compulsory company declarations to social security bodies, whereas the majority of comics authors are freelance or self-employed.

The **** figures from Ouest-France may help us put the SalaireMoyen figures into perspective: **% of professional comic book authors earned less than the Smic, and **% of female authors lived below the poverty line. Samantha Bailly, president of the Ligue des auteurs professionnels, is calling for a regulatory body to oversee inter-professional agreements and re-establish an economic balance with the partners. [***]

Some authors are turning to self-publishing to avoid traditional distribution channels and earn more money. This trend is supported by the democratization of digital books and the dedicated platforms Kobo Writing Life (***).

Cultura offers a package of marketing, diffusion and distribution services in *,*** bookshops in partnership with the Librinova platform. [***] The retailer sells a digital pack or a paper pack for €***. Fnac has also launched a similar offer.

However, self-published books suffer from ...

4.1 Comics, a market with multiple products

The comics market is segmented according to the genres read and purchased. A distinction is made between

Manga: Japanese comics which, by extension, can be used to refer to all works that meet the same standards. They are read from right to left, and have a distinctive black-and-white pictorial style; Comics: science-fiction comics of American origin, often following the evolution of superheroes (***); Genre comics: comics classified by theme (***); Youth comics: comics aimed at children and teenagers; Heritage comics: comics that have left their mark on the history of the genre, classics, albums that are part of a local heritage, but also rare and precious albums. Examples include Asterix and Tintin; Graphic novels: increasingly popular, these are aimed at an adult readership with long, serious stories.

Manga represented **.*% of sales volumes in **** (***). Heritage comics are divided between each segment, and Asterix, for example, is included in children's comics.

Size of comics segments by volume France, ****, Source: ****

4.2 Best sellers of 2022

Le monde sans fin is the best-selling album of **** (***), with ***,*** copies sold.

Source: ****

Prices are governed by the law on the single price of books. Books cannot be sold at different prices depending on the distributor, and promotions are limited in order to protect independent booksellers whose room for maneuver is limited. Promotions may not exceed *% of the price set by the publisher.Manga prices are significantly lower than those of other comics, with One Piece, Naruto, Spy X Family and Demon Slayer costing €*.** each. All these mangas account for a large majority of the rankings, which is not surprising given the explosion of manga in France (***).Single-volume comics such as The Endless World also appear much more expensive than series albums.Finally, digital books are **% to **% cheaper on average than paper books.The Angoulême Festival also represents an extremely important opportunity for authors to make a name for themselves. Julie Doucet's autobiographical comic won the Best Album award in ****. The Angoulême Festival is a great opportunity for comic book authors, as this internationally renowned festival brings together publishers, authors and the general public every year to share their passion for comics. In ****, the Angoulême Festival celebrates its ...

4.3 Comic book price trends

In France, the prices of paper books and digital books (***) have moved in opposite directions. While the price of paper books has risen steadily, the price of digital books has fallen drastically.

Consumer price index for books France, ****-****, index base *** **** Source: ****

The book price index has been on the rise since ****, but this increase needs to be put into perspective with the general price index. Thus, between **** and ****, prices had risen by *.*% in France, compared with just *.*% for books alone. In ****, prices had also risen by *%, compared with just *. *% for books alone. So, since ****, book prices have been rising, but less than inflation. In ****, book price trends were still in line with inflation. For the year ****, following the war in Ukraine, Europe is undergoing an energy crisis causing record inflation (***), this inflation has not yet been felt on book prices. [***] For digital books, the trend is markedly different. The price of digital books has fallen steadily, making them more and more attractive than paper books.

Consumer price index for digital books France, ****-****, index base *** **** Source: ****

Prices for digital books fell by **.**% between **** and ****. It is in fact much easier to lower the prices of digital books thanks to their ...

5.1 Regulatory framework in France

VAT rates

Comics meet the tax definition of a book: "a book is defined as a printed set, illustrated or not, published under a title, the purpose of which is the reproduction of a work of the mind by one or more authors for the purposes of teaching, the dissemination of thought and culture". as such, it is subject to a reduced VAT rate of *.*% in mainland France and *.*% in the French overseas territories. In the case of publications that meet the tax definition of a book, but whose violent or pornographic nature prohibits their distribution to minors, the applicable VAT rate is set at **%.

Single price law

The price of books in France is set by the law of August **, ****, known as the Lang law (***), which establishes the following framework:

The publisher is required to set a retail price, which must be marked on the back of the book; The point of sale may not sell the book at a different price from that set, the only discount being a maximum of *% at the checkout or via a loyalty card. The effective retail price is thus between **% and ***% of the price set by the publisher; The sale price may be ...

6.1 Segmentation

6.2. Study of company websites

Web traffic for the main players in the comics market France, ****-****, in thousands of visits Source: ****

• Media Participations
• Glénat
• Delcourt Groupe
• Editions Albert René (Hachette Groupe)
• Delsol Diffusion
• Interforum (Editis Groupe)
• Gibert Joseph
• Furet du Nord Decitre (Nosoli)
• Fnac Darty