On December 20, eight major French publishing organizations announced the creation of Filéas, a new platform that will track book unit sales data, the first such industry-wide initiative in the country.
The founding members include the French Publishers Association (Syndicat National de l’Edition, SNE), the Bookstore Circle, Dilicom, the Association for the Development of Creative Bookstores (ADELC), the French Booksellers' Union (SLF), the Association of Computerized Libraries and Users of Electronic Networks (ALIRE), the Permanent Council of Writers (CPE), and the Society of Men of Letters (SGDL).
A committee comprising authors, publishers, booksellers, as well as other institutional partners and public and government authorities, will oversee the company. This structure, according to SNE, aims to ensure the project maintains its focus on serving the broadest possible interests of the industry. Harriet Seegmuller, previously an executive with ARTE, will serve as director of Filéas and author Alban Cerisier is chairperson.
The platform will launch with weekly sales data from market research firm GfK. A subsequent phase will introduce daily sales tracking, initially drawing from more than 700 bookstores. The system will integrate existing industry resources, including the Electre Authors database and the Exhaustive Book File (FEL).
Authors will have free access to their sales data, while publishers, distributors, and other industry players will be able to access the service through subscriptions scaled to their organization's size.
News of the launch will be welcome by the industry as and it has been a long-time coming. Antoine Gallimard, then president of the SNE and CEO of Gallimard, initially pushed for such a program as far back as 2012.
The first phase of Filéas is scheduled to launch in 2025, with an official presentation planned for the Paris Book Festival, April 11-13.
