The bill, which is expected to pass the National Assembly later this month, would let book publishers set e-book prices. The idea is to prevent publishers from being undercut by the likes of Amazon or Apple.
The French Senate has passed the first reading of a bill that would allow book publishers to set a fixed price on e-books, in a bid to try to protect publishers and smaller retailers as the e-book market takes off.
But since the first reading on October 26, several objections have been raised – not least of which are whether the law is even legal.
An extension of a 30-year-old law
The law proposed by centre-right senators Catherine Dumas and Jacques Legendre aims to replicate the 1981 Lang Law, which prohibits the sale of physical books for less than five per cent below a cover price set by the publisher.
This law has proved popular in France, helping to maintain one of Europe’s best networks independent bookstores by protecting them from competition from large chains.Dumas and Legendre’s bill was the result of a year of consultations with writers, publishers and retailers, who are concerned that their revenues will be hit by the expanding online market. But for now, industry figures show that e-books make up less than one per cent of France’s book market, but that is expected to double in the next year.
“In 2011, we will see the beginning of a really strong market,” said Clément Hering, an analyst with Gfk, in an interview with Deutsche Welle.
“Till now, it’s been quite a tiny market because of the price of products, which is quite high in France, and the number of platforms that are selling e-books which is quite tiny too, but that is changing.”
According to Hering, the e-book market so far has been a way of generating extra revenue for publishers rather than something that erodes profits, but that could change. In the US, digital literature accounts for more than eight per cent of the book market.
Enforcability remains an issue
But as the Internet is international, it is difficult to see how this law will work in practice. There seems little to stop a French consumer buying a book from a website based in another country, unless the government decides to geo-block e-book retailer websites. Otherwise, a French consumer could just as easily buy the same title at a lower price from Belgium or Luxembourg.
Another more serious obstacle is the European Court of Justice - this protectionist measure might turn out to run contrary to the idea of a single European market.
The Court has dealt with similar cases, including ones resulting from the Lang law, by determining whether the rule would be discriminatory against imports.”If they would be discriminatory then, prima facie, they would be unlawful unless the state imposing the restriction would be able justify it in some way.” said Angus Johnston, an EU law specialist at Oxford University.
The protection of national culture can be adduced as a justification, but Johnston says it is difficult to argue that a country’s literary heritage is protected by allowing the country itself rather than the importer to set the price of a book.
“On the face of it seems it would be challengeable successfully under EU free trade law,” he added.
Slowing innovation
The French parliament will take up the debate again in the next few weeks, when an amended version of the bill will be brought before both houses a final time before it can be signed into law.
Another problem with the proposed law, industry watchers said, is that it may inhibit innovation in this relatively new marketplace. The bill doesn’t make a distinction between books that are distribut
Is it a book? Is it a film? Is it a game? Or all three? Publishers and authors at the world’s biggest book fair are battling to entice a new generation of readers with the latest multimedia products.
That the electronic book reader has turned the book publishers industry on its head is well known. Younger readers are no longer content to thumb through a printed book. The 21st century iPad generation wants interaction and variety.
But talk of the “ebook” that has dominated the Frankfurt Book Fair in recent years has given way in 2010 to excited chatter about the so-called “enhanced ebook”, a mixture of the traditional book, audio, video and game.
“In five years, books will be more often crossmedia products: with embedded sound, animated pictures, Internet links and … possible a gaming component, like alternative reality games,” said Juliane Schulze, from peacefulfish, a consultancy.
Some of the book world’s most celebrated names are already embracing the new format.
Ken Follett, one of the industry’s hottest authors, is expected to present a “multimedia-enhanced” version of his bestseller “The Pillars of the Earth” at this year’s fair.
At the touch of a screen, iPad readers of the “book” can see excerpts from the TV series based on the book, watch interviews with the author and actors and track interactions between characters on an “interactive character tree.”
This year’s fair has a special section devoted to digital, which Gottfried Honnefelder, president of the German book publishers and booksellers association, said could soon account for 10 percent of the market, from one percent today.
Qbend, a firm that helps publishers develop their digital offering, expects 42 percent annual growth for the ebook market between 2010 and 2012.
The enhanced ebook is mainly sold in the United States and Britain at the moment, but it is about to go global, said Andrew Weinstein, vice-president of US book wholesaler and distributor Ingram.
“While ebooks have not finished growing in the United States, they are set to explode in the global marketplace,” he said.
Cornelia Funke, one of Germany’s best-known authors of books for children, put it this way: “It all starts with a book. The love of reading starts, probably around the age of three, when you first pick up that favourite book.”
“In ten years time, that book may well be a screen.”
But the counter-revolution is already starting, with advocates of the traditional format saying that people like to have bound books as a keepsake, in the same way they print out and frame favourite photos from their cameras.
“Take the digital watch,” said Gordon Cheers, an Australian book publishers who presented what he said was the world’s biggest book at the fair — as far from a mobile multimedia offering as could be.
“In the 1980s, everyone said the digital watch would be the end of the traditional watchmaker. Sure, some did go out of business but then analogue watches came back and everyone these days wears one.
“The same will happen with the book. Leave it five or 10 years and books are bound to come back into fashion.”
Funke said: “I speak to loads of 16-year-olds who say they only read things on their electronic readers.”
“But then they tell me that, for the ones they really love, they go out and buy the book.”
Rumours of the death of the book have perhaps been greatly exaggerated.
Frustrated by the lack of minority authors at Washington, D.C.’s annual National Book Festival, Kwame Alexander, a poet and independent producer of literary programs, launched Capital BookFest, a book fair focused on creating festival venues for top African-American authors. The first Capital BookFest, held in Largo, Md., in October 2005, was sponsored by the Washington Post and drew about 1,700 people. “I thought those numbers were kind of low, then I realized that the area has seven book festivals in 30 days,” Alexander said. This year Alexander expects 10,000 people at the October 2 book publishing industry event.
The success in Largo has encouraged Alexander to expand Capital BookFest to nearby cities: Harrisburg, Pa., where, as of press time, 2,000 visitors were expected on September 18, and Charleston, S.C., where Alexander anticipates 5,000 to 10,000 on November 6. The shows will feature nearly 300 authors altogether, among them Wes Moore, chef Nathalie Dupree, Tananarive Due, and Roscoe Orman. About 60% of the attending authors are “from the community that we are serving,” Alexander said. Self-published authors and presses are encouraged to participate, with up to 80 exhibiting at each festival. Fees for individual exhibitors are relatively low, just under $200, and Largo has had many repeat exhibitors and Schiel & Denver Book Publishers.
While the fairs often showcase African-American authors, Alexander said he strives for diversity. “In Prince George’s County, Maryland, which has a largely black population, the authors are primarily African-American. Whereas, in Charleston, where there is more of a cultural hodgepodge, the festival programming reflects that multiformity,” he said. The one-day book festivals offer readings, signings, panel discussions, and more.
Alexander gives credit for his business model to his parents, who were intellectuals involved in the Black Arts movement of the 1960s. His father, Dr. E. Curtis Alexander, launched his own publishing house, ECA Associates, in order to publish his dissertation and organized his own book fairs in Harlem. “He was a really awesome business manager,” Alexander told PW. “As far back as I can remember, I was licking stamps to put on catalogues, or going to ABA, ALA, or the International Book Fair of Radical Black and Third World Books in London.” These days Dr. Alexander exhibits at his son’s book fairs.
Next year’s festival schedule will expand again to include Richmond, Va.; New Orleans; and an as yet undetermined city in the Caribbean. Alexander’s goal is to have festivals in 15 to 20 cities in the next five years. “We are targeting cities that do not have a proper book festival, and have a strong or emerging arts/literary scene,” he said, emphasizing, “This is a community-based effort, and we are bringing our expertise. So we build it from the community up; it’s not us telling them what to do.”
Capital BookFest attracts major sponsorships from national corporations, such as Amazon.com’s CreateSpace, Hilton, and Marriott as well as from local businesses. Although he does not seek out major book publishers as sponsors, Alexander maintains good relations with the large book publisher houses, which send high-profile self publishing authors to his festivals each year. Each festival has two official booksellers—one chain, one local independent—with authors autographing at the bookseller’s autographing station. And to generate income throughout the year, Alexander said, &ldqu
