By Olivia Snaije
Albin Michel's Fairy Herbariaum was one of the few highlights of a lackluster day of digital discussion
PARIS: The topic at the annual meeting of French publishing professionals on Tuesday was the enhanced e-book and EPUB3. Hosted by the French Publisher’s Association (SNE), the meeting kicked off to a round table moderated by Alban Cerisier, head of the association’s digital committee. Representatives from e-book conversion companies Nord Compo, Jouve and Isako conversed disjointedly about EPUB3 in front of an audience that was generally uninformed and confused. A small percentage of the professionals, for the most part under 40 years old, joyously and viciously tweeted comments such as:
- “No wifi. No official tag. Welcome to the meeting on e-books.”
- “E-book publishing for idiots live from the SNE. Yup, we haven’t gotten beyond…”
- “French publishers discovered the fixed-layout!”
- Or simply “ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz”
Next, publishers from Hachette Livre, Albin Michel, Gallimard and Fleurus demonstrated their applications or e-books on iPads. Showing some of their e-books on a large screen, one had the distinct impression that people in the audience were seeing and thinking about e-books for the first time.
Albin Michel’s Nicolas de Cointet demonstrated how the book De Gaulle and the Free French had been adapted into an enhanced e-book. The exercise had cost the company around $27,500 and would retail for about $27. “On top of it the [e-book] market is quasi non-existent,” he said, to general laughter.
Three hours into the conference the one highlight of the afternoon was the presentation of the enhanced book L’Herbier des Fées (The Fairy Herbarium) by the children’s division of Albin Michel. Marion Jablonski of Albin Michel Jeunesse described “taking off on this crazy adventure,” working with the young writer Sébastien Perez, painter and illustrator Benjamin Lacombe, and Prima Linea Productions to create a gorgeous and magical tale with 100 interactions.
“This work is proof that we can remain in the domain of the book, even if we are in the digital era,” said Jabolonski. “Even though it’s multimedia, culturally, it remains a book.” Already out in hardback, the e-book, which should be ready this month, will likely retail for $21.
Besides The Fairy Herbarium, which is a book that can make publishers dream, the annual meeting confirmed that French publishers are still in the very early stages of e-book development. Far from being behind in design or technology, as companies like Jouve or the start-up Walrus have shown, the disconnect here seems to be situated with the publishers.
5 Comments
Hi there,
I’m one of the “small percentage” that tweeted “vicious” comment about the meeting.
We’re launching soon an online book store available everywhere, on any device, dedicated to social reading. Could we talk about it further?
Best
The libsum team
Hi,
IGS-CP is the company that developed the two enhanced books for Albin Michel : the fairy herbarium and the DE GAULLE.
Thanks
Cyril
IGS-CP ENHANCED BOOK TEAM
I want to publish a Unique book throughout you !
I don’t feel that this article is up to Publishing Perspectives standards.
We are told “One had the distinct impression that people in the audience were seeing e-books for the first time”. Well, I’d rather hear why “one” had this impression.
Elsewhere: “e-book conversion companies [...] conversed disjointedly about EPUB3 in front of an audience that was generally uninformed and confused”. Perhaps they were confused because it was a poor presentation and they came to the event because they were uniformed and wanted to change that. I hardly see the point in the author being snooty about any of this.
This article seems less about the event itself than the judgments of the author. There are a myriad of reasons why people and publishers in France haven’t rushed to embrace e-books the way some other countries have. The economic and social reasons would fill an article in and of themselves. Moreover, given the ubiquity of inexpensive and well-made mass market paper books, the seemingly infinite array of classic, modern and translated titles available and the fact that there is an independent bookshop on every other block certainly doesn’t give rise to a sense of lacking anything.
All this to say that I’d much rather hear about the actual response of those publishers in the audience to the idea of e-books in France or the explanation for why Albin Michel spent $27,500 developing an enhanced e-book title than I would the snarky little comments of the author.
Nat B.
A Canadian in Paris
To whom it may concern
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