For the digital book the differential rate of VAT 19

At the book fair coming to close its doors, it has ceased of gloser on the digital book. Two paradoxes emerge: digital determines the editorial strategies while the market is still almost nonexistent, less than 1 of the turnover of the France Edition. the value in the digital world is in part the creators and the production sector to which they belong. Certain links in this sector are particularly at risk: printing, physical storage, bookstore nearby, and even segments of the publishing activity, when the loss of profit centres imbalance the whole House.

The most bitter battle is already played between two giants, Amazon and Apple, none of which is editor, but deploying strategies of vertical integration, the sale of the equipment to the sale of content. Amazon sells digital books at a loss, with focal price (9.99 $) for new policies. Apple prepares to deal with the concern of editors to maintain a greater variety of prices. Both build on complementary forms of writing, offering newspapers, product appeal and addiction to the regular use of the machine.

Besides these two giants, Google stands in ambush to propose its bookshop (Google Edition) and its digital library, a richness that comes from digitization on a forced March of funds for which the group is not embarrassed to respect intellectual property. The loss of several trial is not quite weakened before strategy while based on the seduction of the effect of mass of the proposed offer and the quality of the search engine, today unmatched.

In the face, the French publishers scan their funds with the help of the Ministry of Culture - aid which may give rise to windfall effects. It is true that in the absence of a sizeable offer the market cannot take off. But the offer may result from the single transposition of the paper book. Maturity of practice will lead to requirements which are not a few new features will satisfy. Development and research budgets are limited in the Edition, and considerable in telecoms. The traditional publisher may fear these new entrants, positioned in precursors of forms editorial rather than publishers, but which could them also to assume a share of the value.

The digital book market will result in a fragmentation of the offer. The terms of purchase will diversify. Subscriptions, packages, sales by chapters will coexist with the procurement unit. Some aspects of the Council and the prescription will escape to the bookseller. It examines the foundations of the regulation which prevailed previously, Act Lang prohibiting the discount 5 to preserve editorial diversity by the vitality of the network of retailers.

It is all that should be revisited. The triple or the music sector is present in all heads: an insufficient supply of deterrent pricing, costly and ineffective anti-piracy locks. For the digital book, the differential rate of VAT (19.6 for digital, compared to 5.5 for the book paper, on the pretext that the paper is a good and digital service) is a handicap that the music did not have to face.

A major challenge will be to have below the platforms of the publishers, a sort of hub that allows the retailer to access all of the available production without additional costs of research. We must also build new conditions of access, intended for buyers-readers, complementary to those pathways that draw communities or specialized sites, which allow the infinite diversity of the offer that we can look on the Net does not remain a vain Word.

Promise us a "long tail" effect: a true broadcast for books in circulation until then confidential, and the resurrection of missing titles. Should it be that the consumer is aware of these forgotten titles. A few years ago, Jérôme Lindon, who led the Editions de Minuit and whose tutelary figure flat on the world editorial, seeing the representational deploy dangerously, wondered about the more difficult authors: "Note the lack of an unknown." On the Net, this issue remains more relevant than ever.