Bernard Fixot

Bernard Fixot was born in Villejuif, France to a Briton family and grew up in Arcueil, a southern suburb of Paris. His father was a street cop with the Gentilly police station and his mother was a factory receptionist. He learned to read in primary school in the Arcueil public school system and continued his schooling in nearby Bagneux, where he discovered his passion for books and reading. This passion would clearly define the rest of his professional life. After a brief stint at the prestigious Lycée Henri IV in Paris, he decides to leave school early with the goal of gaining entry into the publishing world by any means necessary. His only degree is the Certificat d’études primaries.

Years later, he is pleased to discover that he learned to read with the same schoolteacher, Madame Tap, as French writer Jean Teulé (The Suicide Shop) and fashion designer Jean-Paul Gaultier.

A self-made man, he starts to work at the age of 17 in the stock room at Hachette for three years. After completing his military service, he spends two years as a sales representative for Hachette's mass market paperback division, Le Livre de Poche and another two for the Gallimard account.

In 1969, he leaves Hachette to become an independent sales representative. That same year, Editions Gallimard splits from the Hachette Group and offers him a position as a sales executive, which he accepts.

At age 27, he becomes sales manager and then sales director of the Gallimard Group (Editions Gallimard, Denoël, Mercure de France). There, he oversees the creation of Gallimard's sales force and takes part in the launch of mass market imprint Folio as well as the creation of the Children's division Gallimard Jeunesse with Pierre Marchard and Jean-Olivier Héron. He leaves the company after seven years, once Gallimard's sales and distribution are autonomous and successful.

In 1978, the Hachette Group, then run by Jacques Marchandise and Gérard Worms, ask him to restructure Hachette Livres' sales department and to create Editions n°1, the first publishing house in France to combine a traditional publisher (Hachette) with a media group (Europe 1 radio station); he accepts on condition that he be able to create his own publishing house two years later, shared 50/50% with Hachette.

Edition n°1's major successes are The Guinness Book of World Records, The World Book of Inventions by Valérie-Anne Giscard d’Estaing, who would become Fixot's wife, and the works of Pierre Bellemare and Paul-Loup Sulitzer.

In 1980, alongside Editions n°1, he creates with Hachette as intended Editions BFB, which he shares with his friend Bernard Barrault. This publishing house, quite literary in nature, publishes authors such as Philippe Djian and Sylvie Caster as well as Histoires brèves, several collections of previously unpublished short stories written by well-known French authors.

In 1983, Jean-Luc Lagardère purchases the Hachette Group and asks Bernard Fixot to become Branch Director of the mass market division, including the paperback (Le Livre de Poche) and children's (Hachette Jeunesse) departments, while continuing to run his own two publishing houses.

He organizes a contest for all the graphic designers in France to modernise Le Livre de Poche’s covers. The winner is a young drafted soldier. His design is used to create the “Biblio” collection. At the same time, he revives the “Bibliothèque Rose” and “Bibliothèque Verte” children's collections.

In 1984, he creates the “Great Writers” collection, coedited with the Filipacchi Press Group, more particularly with Roger Thérond of Paris Match and radio station Europe 1. The concept, meant to encourage the general public, including non-readers, to take interest in literature, was a magazine about the life of an author packaged with a novel by that same author and distributed by the press. There were 100 issues of the magazine-book package, which earned the support and cooperation of the Académie Goncourt. More that 10 million copies were sold in just two years.

At his friend Pierre Barret's (Chairman of Europe 1) request, he also becomes the Managing Director of Publicity and Shows for Europe 1. He hosts, with Michel Drucker's participation, a one-hour weekly show during which he talks about the life of a writer. Three years after the success of the “Great Writer’s” collection, Bernard Fixot creates the “Great Painters” collection with the same partners. Sales rise to 5 million copies after a very memorable launch: a contest for which first prize is an original Renoir painting.

In 1987, after a disagreement with Jean-Claude Lattès, Managing Director of Hachette Livre, Bernard Fixot decides to leave the group to create his own publishing house, Editions Fixot.[5] The two months following is the only period in his career that he stops working!

Editions Fixot is a trade publisher with a catalogue of mainly non-fiction. His team is made up of Antoine Audouard (Managing Director), Anne Gallimard (Editorial Director), Edith Leblond (Financial Director) and Susanna Lea (Foreign Rights Manager).

The house's first major success is Not without My Daughter by Betty Mahmoody, acquired on the last day of the Frankfurt Book Fair after it had been refused by publishers throughout the world. It would later become a success in many countries (Germany, Sweden, etc.) and adapted into a movie directed by Brian Gilbert starring Sally Field in the role of Betty Mahmoody. Bernard Fixot sells over 3.5 million copies of the book in France.

Editions Fixot publishes non-fiction narratives, stories of the extraordinary lives of ordinary people, such as:

• The Swan Dive by Maud Marin[6] (the first autobiography in France of a transsexual)
• Seule tout en haut à droite by Yann Piat (autobiography of the first female deputy of France's National Front party)
• J’avais 12 ans by Nathalie Schweighoffer (the first major French narrative about incest)

Bernard Fixot also seeks out people throughout the world with amazing stories to tell:

• Sold: Story of Modern-day Slavery by Zana Muhsen, a young British woman from Birmingham sold into marriage in Yemen by her father. Bernard Fixot spends 2 days in Yemen with Jean-Pierre Foucault to try and free her.
• My Feudal Lord by Tehmina Durrani (Pakistan)
• I was Born with Sand in my Eyes by Mano Dayak (autobiography of a Touareg tribal leader)

He publishes numerous biographies and autobiographies, notably on:

• King of Spain Juan Carlos, The King, written by José Luis de Vilallonga
• Passions by Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber
• It Snowed on Mount Vitocha by Eddie Vartan.

He also publishes books by Roger Vadim (Brigitte Bardot, Catherine Deneuve, Jane Fonda) and Frédéric Mitterrand, who would become French Minister of Culture.

Alongside these very commercial titles, Bernard Fixot launches a collection of young writers called “Night Blue” featuring debut novelists such as Americans Jonathan Franzen with The Twenty-Seventh City and Michael Chabon with The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and French women Yolaine Destremau (A l’ombre des jacarandas), Pascale Gautier (Moribondes) or Marie-Ange Guillaume's Ils s’en allaient faire des enfants ailleurs. He also publishes Patrick Besson's plays.

He continues on the path of the “Great Writers” collection: making people read who usually don not. In 1992, he creates a “Library” collection. The first three publications are of Baudelaire, Zola and Stendhal, prefaced by prominent French writers of the time.

The concept of this new collection is to provide non-readers with condensed versions of great French literary works, in the spirit of Reader's Digest but somewhat different. For example, Stendhal's The Red and the Black has 45 chapters. The “Library” edition has only 19 and the remaining chapters are summarized, allowing less-avid readers to get excited about the story. Fixot was lambasted by the press for having dared alter such a classic work and the collection was a failure.

Yet, five years later, another French publisher, Marabout, successfully developed the same idea. Times had changed.

In 1988, he founds a new publishing house, TF1 Editions (the number one French television station), with which he publishes books linked to the eponymous television station: books on health related to the show Santé à la une (the Mayo Clinic’s Family Health Book for example), cook books by chef Joël Robuchon, host of the show “Cuisinez comme un grand chef”, novelizations of soap operas, illustrated books about major sporting events, etc.

In 1990, he launches a highly-successful foreign language collection with Berlitz: Yes, I can for English, Si yo puedo for Spanish and Si io posso for Italian.

In 1993, Christian Brégou, Chairman of the CEP media group (that would become Editis), asks him to take over the prestigious publishing house, Editions Robert Laffont. Robert Laffont, who founded the house in 1941, had been obliged to step down a few years earlier for health reasons and the house had been ailing ever since. Bernard Fixot accepts with great enthusiasm and merges Editions Fixot with Editions Robert Laffont. He thus becomes chairman of Robert Laffont, Seghers, Julliard and Fixot. He restructures the house with Antoine Audouard and entrusts Julliard to Bernard Barrault who makes this imprint shine again.

In six years, the Robert Laffont group reclaims its spot as one of the major French trade publishers. These years are particularly marked by the resurgence of the historical novel:

• Christian Jacq publishes 5 volumes of his Ramses series and sells over 13 million copies throughout the world (the series is translated in more than 30 languages)
• Max Gallo publishes a series on Napoleon in 4 volumes, which is adapted into a successful TV series in 2002 (a mini-series with 4 100-minute episodes, produced by Jean-Pierre Guérin, directed by Yves Simoneau and starring Christian Clavier as Napoleon, Isabella Rosselini as Josephine de Beauharnais, Gérard Dépardieu as Joseph Fouché and John Malkovich as Talleyrand).

Many “Fixot” style testimonies are also published during this time:

• At Age 17, We are Carefree by Barbara Samson (the first account from a French person with AIDS)
• Zlata’s Diary by Zlata Filipovic, a 12-year-old Croatian girl. Bernard Fixot succeeded in helping her and her parents escape war-torn Sarajevo. Her account was translated into 32 languages, was a No. 1 best-seller in the United States and movie rights were licensed to Universal.
• Noa Rabin's account following the assassination of her grandfather, Yitzhak Rabin[7]
• The Bandit Queen of India by Phoolan Devi
• Former US schoolteacher Marie Letourneau's account of the relationship with 13-year-old Vili Fualaau that put her in jail[8]

...as well as biographies and autobiographies on Jimmy Goldsmith and Olivier de Kersauson and some impressive new fiction bestsellers such as Nicholas Sparks, Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child, Kathy Reichs and Daniel Silva. He continues to publish well-known bestsellers such as Michael Crichton, John Grisham and Ken Follett.

In 1997, Bernard Fixot, publishes a collective work that was his idea: The Black Book of Communism. This work included the first complete inventory of victims of communist regimes and its publication created violent polemics and was a world-wide success with more than 26 translations.

Two other publications should be highlighted: The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby and If Only it were True/Just Like Heaven, Marc Lévy's first novel.[9] Film rights to both novels were sold to Steven Spielberg.

Having completed his mission at Editions Robert Laffont, in 1999, Bernard Fixot creates XO Editions[10] with Edith Leblond and the Editis publishing group. With offices in the Tour Montparnasse, XO's editorial policy is to voluntarily limit its production (15-20 titles a year) in order to put as many means as possible into each publication with the goal of optimizing sales, both in France and abroad through foreign licenses.[11] The goal of this very innovative and ambitious editorial policy is to discover new talent and put French authors back into bestseller lists the world over. This has been accomplished in 13 years:

• 297 titles published
• 230 titles on the bestseller lists in France
• 173 titles sold abroad

Here is a list of the major authors published by XO:

• Novels: Guillaume Musso,[12] Christian Jacq,[13] Romain Sardou, Mireille Calmel, Nicolas Vanier, José Frèches, Bernard Minier, Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, Gilbert Bordes, Elena Sender, Myrielle Marc, Michel de Grèce, David Khayat, Christine Bravo
• Biographies : Max Gallo, Charles Napoléon
• Autobiographies: Ingrid Betancourt,[14] Farah Pahlavi, Tarita Brando, Nana Mouskouri, Daniel Filipacchi, Sylvie Vartan, Michel Sardou, Marie-Christine Barrault, Mireille Darc, Jean-Claude Brialy, Didier Barbelivien, Jean-Jacques Debout, Pierre Guillaume
• Political essays: Nicolas Sarkozy,[15] Luc Ferry, Jacques Attali, Christine Ockrent
• Testimonies: Mike Horn, Edouard et Mathilde Cortès
• Health/Wellness: Nadia Volf, Elizabeth Teissier, Nitya Varnes
• Young Adult novels: Sophie Audouin-Mamikonian (Tara Duncan), Anne Plichota et Cendrine Wolf (Oksa Pollock, Susan Hopper)

Notably, Guillaume Musso, who has published 10 novels with XO Editions has been the number one bestselling French novelist for the past two years (GFK annual ratings 2011, 2012) with more than 1.5 million copies sold each year in France.[16]

Alongside XO, in 2002, Bernard Fixot created with Edith Leblond, Philippe Robinet Oh! Editions whose publications include extraordinary narratives about the women's condition throughout the world (honor crimes, forced marriage, physical abuse, incest) as well as non-fiction titles about various societal issues (drugs, alcoholism, anorexia, euthanasia, homelessness, etc.).

In 2013, he created Bernard Fixot LLC in Los Angeles, dedicated to selling movie and TV adaptation rights to books published by Fixot and XO Editions.