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Nîmes: Number 7 will walk the literature aboard its Bouquine truck

The Nîmes publishing house takes its authors to meet readers.

“If you don’t go to literature. Literature will go to you”, laughs Christophe Lahondès, founder of the Nîmes publishing house Nombre 7, which will launch a Bouquine truck, a truck to meet the readers. For Gilles Arnoult, associate director, the metaphor is rather cinematographic: “It’s like in” Les Demoiselles de Rochefort “. The fairgrounds arrive on the village square and it’s the authors’ feast”.

“Places where we are not expected”

From the start, the number 7 publishing house has gone out of the box, with a model of books published on demand that it does not hesitate to sell outside the traditional framework of bookstores, for example at the farmhouse. “This year, we were frustrated with the lack of literary events. Fairs and dedications have stopped. Our authors, who have limited access to bookstores, are looking for these moments of contact.”, explains Gilles Arnoult. Number 7 therefore sought a new formula, leaving the beaten track as always.

“We will go to places where we are not expected, invest the places of passages, festive and cultural events, night and craft markets. We can even create an event.“, continue the editors, who will offer sets with three authors, always in connection with the territory. The project should start next month and the truck will turn mainly within a radius of 200 km around Nîmes. “The advantage is being in contact with writers who speak or who are from the region”, details Romane Grignon, master student in Humanities and Creative Industries who supported the project.

A summer beach tour?

“The idea really appeals to our authors” and some have already made contacts to bring the Bouquine truck to their town. “This is the cooperative spirit of the house. Writers are like ambassadors”, welcomes Christophe Lahondès.

Number 7 hopes for example to participate in the Jeudis de Nîmes. The house is linked to a campsite near Montpellier. “It is a population open to discovery and which has time to read”, smiles Gilles Arnoult. During the summer, he would also like to tour the beaches.

Unlike supermarket car parks where people are in a hurry, on the contrary, he wants to land in places conducive to meeting, where it is possible to take his time. And as the house has authors all over France, Number 7 then wishes to develop the fleet of trucks. A second should survey the roads of the country of Gex, near the Swiss border, in the fall.

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