Fnac buys 50% of graphic novel platform Izneo

Fnac, the biggest French cultural products chain, has acquired 50% of Europe’s leading electronic graphic novel and comic book portal Izneo.

The platform was launched jointly in 2010 by Média-Participations and several specialist publishers, and now has a catalogue of more than 14,000 titles, which cover almost all of French language production, a joint Fnac-Izneo statement said. The other 50% of the capital is held by nine publishers—Ankama, Bamboo, Bayard, Casterman, Dargaud, Dupuis, Gallimard, Jungle and Le Lombard.

Izneo distributes its catalogue through all digital bookshops—Fnac.com, Google, Mollat.com, Tea, Dialogues, and La Galerne—and offers readers a free flip-through the first pages of titles offered by more than 50 publishers. More than six million albums have been leafed through since the platform was  created, said president Claude de Saint Vincent.

The strategy behind the deal is to accelerate Fnac’s digital development in this sector, whose “editorial and technical models are different from those of general literature,” and to accelerate Izneo’s expansion, the statement said.

Izneo already holds “a substantial” catalogue of titles from Cinebook, Taitan Comics and Europe Comics, and is “actively working on increasing” it, c.e.o Luc Boucier told The Bookseller. It is also developing a Dutch language catalogue in partnership with the Antwerp-based platform Yieha.

Europe Comics, formed by 13 European publishers and subsidized by the European Commission, aims to give English speakers greater access to titles from around the 28-nation European Union.

At the end of last year, Fnac had a network of 199 stores, including 124 in France, and reported consolidated sales of €3.9bn in 2014.