On October 7, 2011 Amazon.fr started to sell the new Kindle for 99 Euros. This is the same Kindle as the Kindle 4 on Amazon.com, and Amazon.fr will begin shipping the Kindles on October 14, 2011. Although France has ereaders that work on cellular networks, the French Kindle is the wi-fi model. Amazon is also opening up Kindle Direct Publishing for Amazon.fr, so authors and independent publishers can publish Kindle ebooks for French customers.
Kindle and Kindle eBooks in France
The French Language Kindle is the latest version of what Greg Greeley, Vice President of Amazon European Retail, says is "the best-selling e-reader in the world." In their October 7, 2011 media release, "Amazon.fr Launches French Kindle Store and First French-Language Kindle," Amazon says that the new French Kindle will offer subscriptions to Le Monde, Les Echos, Le Figaro, Libération and Aujourd'hui en France/Le Parisien. Amazon.fr has customers in France, Monaco, Luxembourg, Switzerland, and Belgium.
Authors and publishers using Kindle Direct Publishing are able to use the 70% royalty option for original content, and payment for authors can be made in US Dollars, Pounds Sterling, or Euros. Public domain books may be another issue; even Google ebooks has faced resistance in France over public domain books.
France and Public Domain Digital Books
Kindle is offering free public domain books, and it will be interesting to see if there is a national response to their free ebook selections. France was thought to be critical of Google Books in 2009, when French President Nicolas Sarkozy highlighted the importance of France's ability to digitize ebooks on their own terms.
In 2009 The Telegraph reported that Mr. Sarkozy was upset about Google's digital book scanning projects, saying, "We won't let ourselves be stripped of our heritage to the benefit of a big company, no matter how friendly, big or American it is...We are not going to be stripped of what generations and generations have produced in the French language, just because we weren't capable of funding our own digitisation project." ("Nicolas Sarkozy Squares Up to Google in Books Dispute" by Claudine Beaumont and agencies, December 9, 2009.) Although Sarkozy appeared to be discussing Google books, his comments about "a big American company" certainly could apply to Amazon.
France has a market for ebook readers; Bookeen makes the popular Linux based Cybook ebook reader line, which can read EPUB files. The Kindle is able to read PDF and Mobi files, but not the almost universal EPUB file format.
Alex Sharp - Alex Sharp is a teacher who has been keeping Suite101 readers up to date with the latest in audio- and e-book gadgetry since 2008.
