Say Bonjour to the Amazon French Kindle Store

By Hannah Johnson

Amazon announced the launch of the French Kindle Store today, joining Kindle stores in Germany, UK and USA. The French store will serve customers in France, Belgium, Monaco, Luxembourg and Switzerland.

Amazon also announced that French-language Kindle devices are now on sale for 99 euros, and will ship on October 14. At its launch, the French store contains over 35,000 French-language Kindle titles, and access to over 825,000 titles from around the world.

The French Kindle Store offers titles from bestselling authors like Katherine Pancol, Delphine de Vigan, Harlan Coben, Stéphane Hessel, Haruki Murakami, Françoise Bourdin and Michel Houellebecq. Newspapers including Le Monde and Les Echos are also available.

Along with the French Kindle Store, Amazon said that independent publishers and self-published authors can sell their titles in France using the Kindle Direct Publishing platform. Kindle titles sold in France will receive Amazon’s standard 70% royalty rate.

Greg Greeley, vice president, European Retail at Amazon said, “Authors in many countries have already seen tremendous success with KDP, like American author John Locke who has sold more than 1 million Kindle books using KDP, and we’re happy to bring the program to French authors and publishers.”

About the Author

Hannah Johnson

Hannah Johnson is the publisher of international book industry magazine Publishing Perspectives, which provides daily information and news about book markets around the world. In addition to building partnerships with international cultural and trade organizations, she works with the Frankfurt Book Fair to organize and support a number of its overseas initiatives. Hannah has also worked as the managing editor for an online media company, The Hooch Life, focused on craft distillers and cocktail experts. Prior to that, she worked as a project manager for the Frankfurt Book Fair’s New York office, managing various business and marketing activities.