Is France ready for the ebook?

The French are sometimes accused of being slow to pick up new technologies but the e-distribution sector is banking on them changing their ways this Christmas. French authorities, however, fear that ebooks and other new trends could be putting French culture in peril.

epagine site

In the US, Google made more than three million books available to internet users last Monday with the opening of its online book store: Google ebook.

It is a move that pits it against other giants such as Apple’s iBookstore, Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Amazon’s Kindle store, as well as some French online stores such as Fnac and epagine.

Experts including cognitive psychology researcher Thierry Baccino, and the director of epagine Stéphane Michalon, will be discussing the future of e-distribution in France at a conference open to the public at the Musée des arts et metiers on Thursday 16 December.
 

Digitising books, documents and maps is nothing new. Back in the infancy of the internet, a universal library was one of the ultimate aspirations.

But due to a series of technological problems and digital rights management disputes, the project has struggled to get off the ground. In the early 1970s Project Gutenburg got the ball rolling by putting works by dead authors online for free.

It was only in 2004 that Google entered into the market. It has since scanned 15 million books from more than 100 countries and in more than 400 languages.

Fearful that it was lagging behind and could lose control of its cultural heritage, France’s National library, the BNF, started its own project, Gallica. Like Google, it is an online or "cloud-based" project with over one million books and documents that can downloaded onto a computer and then sideloaded onto a device of choice.

Yet the market has been slower to take off in France than it has in Japan and the United States. Part of the problem is navigating France’s protectionist publishing laws, which mean that books cannot be sold at discount prices and result in a fragmented market.

But Stéphane Michalon, the founder of online store epagine, offers books by some of France’s biggest publishers including Gallimard, Flammarion and Fayard. He thinks Google has a role to play.

“Publishing houses need Google for two reasons," he says. "Firstly, it is one of the most popular search engines in France and secondly it has the financial clout that is needed to digitise books as it is a process that is very expensive.

“It is true that they need to keep their independence but they also need Google.”

He remains upbeat about the market in 2011 and says that he expects sales of ebooks and ereader devices to explode.

“I think the tipping point was in 2010 and that in 2011 the sale of ebooks is going to take off in a massive way.”

But even though edistribution is growing, with Amazon saying that ebooks are now oustripping printed books, many French readers still feel strong nostalgia for the past.

Many confuse the Kindle ereader for a tablet such as an ipad or a Galaxy Tab and think that reading an electronic device would be tiring.

"I'm not really very computer oriented, I'm more artistic. It's not really my thing." says Daniel Taurines.

But Kindle owner Damien Corrigan notes how easy it is to use and handle regardless of the size of the book.

“You can’t change pages on a paper book wearing gloves," he says. "If I put it down it doesn’t lose its page.”

Kindle owner and RFI journalist Jan Van de Made points out that most ereaders use something called e-ink and are not back-lit like computer screens or tablets.

"You can also take it outside and read in the sun,” he points out.

He says that it is very practical, although perhaps not as romantic as a printed book.

For those who are turned off by the touch screens and sleek metal finish of most ereaders, he notes that there are leather covers that can give an ebook the appearance of a traditional notebook.

As for the smell of paper, de Made notes that help may be on the way in the form of a spray-on odour.