Quote:
Originally Posted by FlorenceArt
Hah! You guys don't know how lucky you are. In France, the selling price of paper books is fixed by the editor, by law. The price is printed on the cover, and it never goes down. However, after the first edition (priced between 12 and 20 euros usually), if the book is successful enough there will be a cheap paperback edition at 6-7 euros. But this paperback is not published by the same company, and so far the e-books we have available in France are published by the original publisher, at the original price. I have seen a few books that are several years old, sold in electronic version at almost 3 times the price of the paperback!  |
This is a completely astonishing and shocking thing. It is all the more astonishing when one realises that the book world is on the edge of a precipice and these publishing companies who have become dependent on this kind of super-profit, and who are trying to hold back the tide, have absolutely no hope of surviving the change.
And if the French Gov think they can hold back the tide in some idiotic effort to 'save and protect the French culture from Americanisation' then it is even more deluded than usual.
Illegal copies are exploding on the internet. The ridiculous amounts of control over pricing that some countries have allowed the publishers cannot survive the changes that are happening and these publishers have no excuses. They have seen the writing on the wall for years now and they deserve absolutely no sympathy.