French Retailers Ask For Nationalized eBook Hub

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Five of the biggest French book retailers held a joint-press conference last week in which they declared that France should have a national eBook platform or hub where all publishers and retailers would work together to sell eBooks. This obviously comes after Amazon’s dominance with the Kindle ecosystem.

The booksellers also asked the French government to extend price controls that exist on current books to eBooks, to slow competition. The CEO of company Decitre gave the example that a eBook hub will exist without the government’s intervention, but will likely be run and owned by Amazon or Apple.

They cited an incident in which Amazon used the Whispernet 3G connections built into every Kindle to remove a copy of Orwell’s “1984″ from users’ Kindles. The Chinese censorship controversy was also referenced. A similar system exists in Germany, where a single hub, endorsed by the government and run by a collective of retailers.

However, short of government intervention, such a hub would require the assistance of the publishers, and the French ones have balked at the idea. The head of France’s largest publisher, Hachette Livre, said while he wouldn’t be opposed to a single eBook hub that served all eBook readers and their users, he thought himself and the retailers had different goals.

The French retailers are obviously worried about Amazon and their near-monopoly on eBooks for the Kindle, as well as the impending Apple tablet and rumored publishing deals with newspapers and magazines. Dedicated bookseller stores have always depended on the ‘power reader’ who buys 20 books a year.

With many of those readers moving to eBook readers, booksellers are losing their biggest customers. Amazon’s wide selection of eBooks for the Kindle have made little incentive for customers to go elsewhere outside of Amazon.com for their books.