Meeting with the bookbinder Franck Michel in Grenoble

How do you see the living heritage company label you have had since 2007?

At the time it made him stand out. The problem is that in my profession there are people who have this label and I don’t know why. They are semi-industrial binders. That does not make sense. So, today, the interest I see in it is essentially fiscal. Thanks to this label, I have an additional tax deduction. In terms of visuals, it doesn’t really speak to people.

Do you have to be a craftsman to get this label?

No, because there are great producers who have obtained it. The criteria concern the sustainability of a company, its historicity, its specificity. We have this label because we do niche jobs, even if in France we are 150 or 200 doing it. Also because I have a fairly large collection of gilding irons (500) and also because the shop has existed since 1932.

The bookbinder’s paw

What attracted you to this job?

The love of the book. I did not know the bound book before I discovered the school bookbinding workshop. I worked for three years at the BNF. I had passed the competition to restore books at the BNF. But Parisian life was not good for me and I came here to Grenoble. I came for the mountains, but also because there was the possibility of buying a workshop quite quickly that was fine with a good clientele. Many workshops are linked to the personality of the bookbinder. When the person sells, it makes no sense to buy back his shop because what interested customers was above all the binder’s touch, a bit like with an artist.

In this workshop, what were customers looking for?

They were looking for a classic binding that any bookbinder can do. Contrary to creative binding where there is a particular touch, a mood, the fact of a person designing the aesthetics (colors, textures, layout) of the binding. Today, we do some creative binding here, but the business is mainly about new binding and restoring old books.

What are your customers’ profiles?

These are private customers, from Isère, even from the Rhône-Alpes. These are libraries specialized in antique books throughout France and abroad (Belgium, Switzerland, Morocco, etc.). And we have a clientele of administrations, especially with municipal archives. We work at the regional level because we have to get the documents. We are still working a little with the notaries. When I bought the shop, the former bookbinder made 90% of his turnover with notaries.

point of no return

What is your turnover today?

We have fluctuated around 130,000 euros for two or three years. The order book is full, with six months of activity ahead of us. But we are at a turning point. If we can sustain the business over the next five years, it means we will have started something new. In my opinion, the notarial and archival part will disappear. Old booksellers and private individuals will remain. The difficulty for booksellers is that the cost of the restoration must not exceed the value of the object, otherwise they cannot sell it. With individuals, the emotional is priceless.

Is there still an attachment to the book today in your opinion?

Yes, even young people. When they want a beautiful object, turning to the book is not bad. Often we have grandparents who come to have the thesis of their grandson or granddaughter tied up …

Do you work alone?

I work with Mathilde, who is an employee and I currently have an apprentice. From the beginning, at least three of us worked in the workshop. We were also five years old, between 2005 and 2015, when the workshop was booming. Here, we are in a stagnant phase.

Would you encourage today’s youth to take up this profession?

It gets difficult. The courses are broadcast on a university system. The time in the workshop was reduced to a thread. You can’t specialize with so little practice …