Unbelievable!- The French Still Flock to Bookstores

[SeaKing]

The French Still Flock to Bookstores



By ELAINE SCIOLINO
Published: June 20, 2012
New York Times

"PARIS — The French, as usual, insist on being different. As independent bookstores crash and burn in the United States and Britain, the book market in France is doing just fine. France boasts 2,500 bookstores, and for every neighborhood bookstore that closes, another seems to open. From 2003 to 2011 book sales in France increased by 6.5 percent.

E-books account for only 1.8 percent of the general consumer publishing market here, compared with 6.4 percent in the United States. The French have a centuries-old reverence for the printed page.

Browsers at a monthly exchange in Paris where a group of retirees display books, and customers may take as many books as they want if they agree never to sell or destroy them.

“There are two things you don’t throw out in France — bread and books,” ..."

-more on dead wood shops-

[wyndslash]

that's a lovely bit of news i suspect it's a bit of a social thing for them as well (meet friends, etc etc) but i'm not french so i wouldn't know :P

it's shameful, but it's always been a dream of mine to open a small little bookshop of my own in the future perhaps on an idyllic island that would mean i'd have to be wealthy to afford that, though

[plib]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

that's a lovely bit of news i suspect it's a bit of a social thing for them as well (meet friends, etc etc) but i'm not french so i wouldn't know :P

I think it has more to do with this, also from the article:

A more compelling reason is the intervention of the state. In the Anglophone book world the free market reigns; here it is trumped by price fixing.

Since 1981 the “Lang law,” named after its promoter, Jack Lang, the culture minister at the time, has fixed prices for French-language books. Booksellers — even Amazon — may not discount books more than 5 percent below the publisher’s list price, although Amazon fought for and won the right to provide free delivery.


Last year as French publishers watched in horror as e-books ate away at the printed book market in the United States, they successfully lobbied the government to fix prices for e-books too. Now publishers themselves decide the price of e-books; any other discounting is forbidden.

And as for these guys!

On the third Sunday of every month this organization takes over a corner of the Rue des Martyrs south of Montmartre. A small band of retirees classify used books by subject and display them in open crates.

The books are not for sale. Customers just take as many books as they want as long as they adhere to an informal code of honor neither to sell nor destroy their bounty. They are encouraged to drop off their old books, a system that keeps the stock replenished.

Depriving the authors and publishers (and artists, and booksellers, and taxman, and...,and...,and...) of their income. They should be ashamed of themselves.

[aceflor]

Originally Posted by wyndslash

that's a lovely bit of news i suspect it's a bit of a social thing for them as well (meet friends, etc etc) but i'm not french so i wouldn't know :P

it's shameful, but it's always been a dream of mine to open a small little bookshop of my own in the future perhaps on an idyllic island that would mean i'd have to be wealthy to afford that, though

You are right Wyndlash, bookstores is a social thing for us. We love books, we love to talk about them, we read a lot.

[AndrewH]

The picture doesn't really fit. Unless four people constitute a flock in France.

[plib]

Originally Posted by AndrewH

The picture doesn't really fit. Unless four people constitute a flock in France.

It's a nouvelle cuisine flock.

[Sweetpea]

Two things can be the case here: French just don't want to enter the 21st century with their reading habits, or, and I think the most likely one, they are discouraged to go ereading by the publishers. Just make sure there's a low availability and price those books that are available way too high and nobody will jump to the other ship.

I don't read Dutch ebooks. Partly because I don't like to read translations of English books when I can just as well read the English book, but also because the Dutch books hardly are available. Or available at a price that is just a lot higher than the pbook.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Sweetpea

I don't read Dutch ebooks.

I don't read Dutch books either. That's because I can't read or speak Dutch.

[VaporPunk]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

I don't read Dutch books either. That's because I can't read or speak Dutch.

Flawlessly logical.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by Provenzano

112 Gripes about the French
Published in Paris in 1945 by the 'Information & Education Division' of the US Occupation Forces.
http://www.112gripes.com/index.html

French women actually smell lovelier and fresher than most other.

[tubemonkey]

Originally Posted by Kumabjorn

French women actually smell lovelier and fresher than most other.

Don't even ask what monkey women smell like

[plib]

65. "The French drive like lunatics! They don't obey traffic rules ; they don't even use common sense."

Most Frenchmen are probably not as skillfiil drivers as most Americans.

Their traffic rules and system are inferior to ours.

Although I will concede that the Priorité a droite rule is lunatic.

[Kumabjorn]

Originally Posted by tubemonkey

Don't even ask what monkey women smell like

That is why evolution has given you flat noses, most odours just whiff by. Lucky monkey!

[carpetmojo]

Originally Posted by plib

I think it has more to do with this, also from the article:
And as for these guys!..........................Depriving the authors and publishers (and artists, and booksellers, and taxman, and...,and...,and...) of their income. They should be ashamed of themselves.

Returning to the original thread, I have a sneaking - perhaps more - admiration for the manner in which the French fight to maintain their indigenous culture in so many ways.
I find it hard to raise much of a cogent argument against this attitude - yes, OK , the book market is tightly regulated, but there seems no great protest about it within the country.
The French are rightly proud of their language and identity.

And those "Free Book Fairs" - gosh, I wish we had that attitude, frankly.
More power to them for it.

[kumaryu]

I miss bookshops. In my city, only one bookshop chain remains in business where once there was one on almost every high street. As a book reader suffering from Amazon addiction and an avid user of ebooks, I am responsible for this scourge.

I miss the experience of walking down the aisles looking at the covers, picking one up, reading the reviewers' comments, flipping through the pages and some times reading a few pages at random. "Look Inside" feature on Amazon just isn't the same.