3 ms·

That's interesting! So how does this regulating work exactly?

Neracked 8y ago
The editor of a book decides at what price it is going to be sold. Then, whether you go to your local bookshop, a huge mall or Amazon, the price is going to be the same.
C4stor 8y ago
The book price is fixed by the editor/publisher (I'm sorry, I'm not sure of the correct english word for "éditeur" in french), and all resellers have to sell it at this price. To allow bookshops to do a margin, they have a specific different agreement with editors. I _think that in general they pay a yearly flat fee to editors (in the tens of thousands of euros) and then get the books at a lower price. If they sell enough copies, they end up a profit.
- webmobdev 8y ago
  Ok. So does that make books expensive in France (assuming all editors / publishers are corporate capitalists looking to squeeze the maximum profit?. And what about second-hand books - do old and used books also have to be sold at a price dictated by these editors / publishers?
  - nraynaud 8y ago
    There is still competition in the sense that another author can write a book on a related genre. Second hand books are as common as in the US I’d say. The first Harry Potter is 8.70€ as a pocket book on Amazon.fr and I see $7.20 for paperback in the US. The big difference is in school books, I just looked into solid mechanics, we are une the 30-70€ range in France and $80-130 range in the US (in a bad comparison, I see stuff completely irrelevant in my query result). The trick is that the French gouvernement is not passive, it often tell industries that if they don’t change this or that, they’ll just use the law. In the end I feel it works better than in the US. In particular on book, France is under constant watch by free market entities, so they’d better reach some measure of success for the consumer or the EU will just intervene. The goal is to preserve the French culture, it only works if French people read and write French books. If it's too expensive, people don't buy books, if it's too low, authors don't survive.
  - JeanMarcS 8y ago
    Fortunately, you can resell your books the price you want. There is no money for the publisher. Alas, no money either for the author. And yes, books are expensive in France. And alas again, only a small part of the price goes to the author. They are pretty much greedy yes. Or, mainly, the big publishers. Small one struggle to survive. And the worst part of it ? Epub and PDF are almost the same price than the hardcover versions ! The official reason is that it protects small book stores from Kindles (or any ebook reader), but I'm pretty sure it's just publishers lobbying. And, again, in the end, the author receives only a small part of the sell.
    - webmobdev 8y ago
      > Epub and PDF are almost the same price than the hardcover versions ! That's atrocious and something I really dislike. I personally believe that ebooks should be cheaper - by subtracting the cost it takes to print the paper books (and that should be the maximum price).
      - JeanMarcS 8y ago
        Cost to print, but also cost to stock (I worked with a small publisher for years, and they had to rent a big storage facility for their stock), the cost to ship, etc. These are marginal when selling ePub, and yet it’s still expensive in France. Wanna know something even more stupid ? Most of the time, you can’t buy them from out of France ! I don’t know if this is still true, but two years ago I tried to buy ePub online and couldn’t because I was not in France. Fun fact ? I was living in the Caribbean on a French island (Guadeloupe), which is run on French laws and administration.
  - C4stor 8y ago
    I travelled in the UK and in the US, and I felt that classic books were similarly priced there. In France, for books, there is quite often a cycle of "first edition with luxury components around the 20 bucks mark, followed by a pocket edition a year later around the 9 bucks mark". For traditional french comic books, the price is France is I think higher than what I observed in the US and UK. This is partly due to traditional culture where french publishers prefer full color editions needing more work ( where in the rest of the world we're happily mixing colors and white and black), and partly due too I suppose to a lack of incentive to lower prices when the demand is so high at the moment. Second hand books are a total free market, and are very popular items.
  - Bayart 8y ago
    Second-hand books are extremely common. If anything, habitual readers probably buy more second-hand than new.
kgwgk 8y ago
It's like the "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price" in the US, but instead of Suggested it's Compulsory.

The editor of a book decides at what price it is going to be sold. Then, whether you go to your local bookshop, a huge mall or Amazon, the price is going to be the same.

C4stor 8y ago

The book price is fixed by the editor/publisher (I'm sorry, I'm not sure of the correct english word for "éditeur" in french), and all resellers have to sell it at this price. To allow bookshops to do a margin, they have a specific different agreement with editors. I _think that in general they pay a yearly flat fee to editors (in the tens of thousands of euros) and then get the books at a lower price. If they sell enough copies, they end up a profit.

webmobdev 8y ago
Ok. So does that make books expensive in France (assuming all editors / publishers are corporate capitalists looking to squeeze the maximum profit?. And what about second-hand books - do old and used books also have to be sold at a price dictated by these editors / publishers?
- nraynaud 8y ago
  There is still competition in the sense that another author can write a book on a related genre. Second hand books are as common as in the US I’d say. The first Harry Potter is 8.70€ as a pocket book on Amazon.fr and I see $7.20 for paperback in the US. The big difference is in school books, I just looked into solid mechanics, we are une the 30-70€ range in France and $80-130 range in the US (in a bad comparison, I see stuff completely irrelevant in my query result). The trick is that the French gouvernement is not passive, it often tell industries that if they don’t change this or that, they’ll just use the law. In the end I feel it works better than in the US. In particular on book, France is under constant watch by free market entities, so they’d better reach some measure of success for the consumer or the EU will just intervene. The goal is to preserve the French culture, it only works if French people read and write French books. If it's too expensive, people don't buy books, if it's too low, authors don't survive.
- JeanMarcS 8y ago
  Fortunately, you can resell your books the price you want. There is no money for the publisher. Alas, no money either for the author. And yes, books are expensive in France. And alas again, only a small part of the price goes to the author. They are pretty much greedy yes. Or, mainly, the big publishers. Small one struggle to survive. And the worst part of it ? Epub and PDF are almost the same price than the hardcover versions ! The official reason is that it protects small book stores from Kindles (or any ebook reader), but I'm pretty sure it's just publishers lobbying. And, again, in the end, the author receives only a small part of the sell.
  - webmobdev 8y ago
    > Epub and PDF are almost the same price than the hardcover versions ! That's atrocious and something I really dislike. I personally believe that ebooks should be cheaper - by subtracting the cost it takes to print the paper books (and that should be the maximum price).
    - JeanMarcS 8y ago
      Cost to print, but also cost to stock (I worked with a small publisher for years, and they had to rent a big storage facility for their stock), the cost to ship, etc. These are marginal when selling ePub, and yet it’s still expensive in France. Wanna know something even more stupid ? Most of the time, you can’t buy them from out of France ! I don’t know if this is still true, but two years ago I tried to buy ePub online and couldn’t because I was not in France. Fun fact ? I was living in the Caribbean on a French island (Guadeloupe), which is run on French laws and administration.
- C4stor 8y ago
  I travelled in the UK and in the US, and I felt that classic books were similarly priced there. In France, for books, there is quite often a cycle of "first edition with luxury components around the 20 bucks mark, followed by a pocket edition a year later around the 9 bucks mark". For traditional french comic books, the price is France is I think higher than what I observed in the US and UK. This is partly due to traditional culture where french publishers prefer full color editions needing more work ( where in the rest of the world we're happily mixing colors and white and black), and partly due too I suppose to a lack of incentive to lower prices when the demand is so high at the moment. Second hand books are a total free market, and are very popular items.
- Bayart 8y ago
  Second-hand books are extremely common. If anything, habitual readers probably buy more second-hand than new.

kgwgk 8y ago

It's like the "Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price" in the US, but instead of Suggested it's Compulsory.