France e-books drop predicted

E-book sales rose to 5% from 4% of French publishers’ turnover last year, but are expected to fall sharply as a share of the total by 2020, according to the third annual survey carried out by consultants KPMG. 

Of the total, 31% of publishers said they do not offer e-books and 56% said they have no plans to do so. The proportion predicting that e-books would represent less than 10% of the market by 2020 jumped from 18% in 2014 to 43% this year, noted Joëlle Tubiana, the KPMG partner in charge of the publishing sector in France. 

Conversely, the proportion forecasting that digital would account for more than 15% almost halved from 62% in 2014 to 32% this year, she added. 

The survey was conducted between March and June this year and elicited responses from 79 independents and seven groups of publishers of all sizes across France. 

On pricing, 44% of publishers continued to charge an average  of 30% less for digital than hardback versions, down from 49% last year, while 15% of respondents charged 20% less, up from 6% in 2015. 

The proportion of publishers aligning e-book prices with those of paperbacks plunged from 61% in 2015 to 41% in the latest survey. 

The results also showed that 52% of houses paid the same royalties for digital as print, against 54% last year, and 48% paid a higher rate, against 46%. Among those paying higher royalties for digital, the share offering a rate above 50% plunged from 41% to 11%.

Further, the main reason for the minority of publishers that take no anti-piracy measures is that they consider the latter are ineffective rather than an obstacle to sales.