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Hachette Livre chief executive Arnaud Nourry has said that he regretted that a misunderstanding had arisen with French booksellers over the publisher's advertising campaign for the launch of the iPad in France at the end of May.
The misunderstanding might have been avoided if a meeting with the Benoït Bougerol, president of the French booksellers association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF), had taken place as planned at the end of June, Nourry said in an interview with the French trade weekly Livres Hebdo. A meeting is now scheduled for 10th September.
The interview and an explanatory letter to company employees were in response to a petition">http://www.thebookseller.com/news/126375-french-indies-petition-against-... that was launched during the summer by the French booksellers association (Syndicat de la Librairie Française, SLF) to protest against Hachette Livre's policy and attracted more than 400 signatures. The petition alleged that Hachette Livre was trying "to marginalise French booksellers [for e-books, bowing to] the demands of the American market".
Nourry dismissed the petition's allegations that Hachette had treated booksellers with contempt by using the slogan "already available on iPad", that the group did not participate in collective initiatives to promote the trade, and that the advertising campaign was aimed to please shareholders. He said the idea behind it was that publishers' know how was central to ebooks, and that piracy and disintermediation were two major risks in the growth of digitisation.
Nourry added that ebook sales in the US are expected to total about $50m this year, and that the price cut in the latest Kindle model was "very good news: Amazon will now have to earn money from ebook sales", he said.
Nourry reiterated his forecast that ebooks will represent 15% of book sales worldwide in five years, but with national variations. He also predicted a "mediocre" year for books in France, with sales remaining flat at best or declining by 2%.