You are viewing your 1 free article this month. Login to read more articles.
Gallimard reduced the prices of its 1,500 e-books on Monday (19th December), two weeks ahead of the cut in VAT from 19.6% to 7% on 1st January, the French trade publication Livres Hebdo reported this morning.
Since reading devices are expected to be offered as Christmas presents, alert customers won’t have to wait to buy their books at the new prices, the publisher’s head of digital distribution Eric Marbeau was quoted as saying. The publisher has cut the net price and vendors’ margins to enable it to to pay 19.6% VAT until the end of the year. The backlist titles of the Folio imprint have already been aligned with paperbacks and will not change.
The group’s e-book prices have been lowered by about 10% to a maximum of €15 (£12.50) which is regarded as a psychological ceiling. This brings the pricepoint of the 2011 Goncourt prize-winner L’art français de la guerre (The French Art of War) by Alexis Jenni down to €14.99 from €16.80, and the winner of the Goncourt prize awarded by lycée or upper secondary school students Du domaine des murmures (Of the Domain of Murmurs) by Carole Martinez to €11.99 from €13.50.
Publishers are anxious to avoid the criticisms levelled at restaurants for passing on hardly any of their July 2009 VAT cut on meals. Gallimard is in the spotlight on this issue, as its c.e.o. Antoine Gallimard is also president of the French Publishers Association (Syndicat de l’Edition Française, SNE), Livres Hebdo noted.