Hachette chief hits out at e-books

By Ben Hall in Paris in the Financial Times.
Published: August 31 2009

The pressure from Google’s digital library project and Amazon’s electronic books is forcing publishers to consider drastic price cuts, the head of the world’s second largest publisher of books by sales has warned.

Arnaud Nourry, chief executive of French publishing group Hachette Livre, said unilateral pricing by Google, Amazon and other e-book retailers such as Barnes & Noble could destroy profits and kill the lucrative trade in hardback editions.
He said publishers were “very hostile” to Amazon’s pricing strategy – over which the online retailer failed to consult publishers – to charge $9.99 (€7) for all its e-books in the US. He also pointed to plans by Google to put millions of out-of-copyright books online for public use in a digital library.
“On the one hand, you have millions of books for free where there is no longer an author to pay and, on the other hand, there are very recent books, bestsellers at $9.99, which means that all the rest will have to be sold at between zero and $9.99,” Mr Nourry said.

For the full story link to the FT online.