Apparently the french publishing industry want to force people to buy real books and want to punish those who to use ebook readers and read ebooks.  First by only allowing a very short selection of books in French to be available in ebook formats.  Second by setting the prices of ebooks to be very expensive so people are less tempted to buy them.

By behaving so foolishly they also punish the rest of Francophony since many countries import books from France like Québec where I live.  So that means that the ebook in French rarity and outrageous prices are in effect in those countries as well, it’s definitively the case here in Québec.

I’ve been thinking about getting a ebook reader, a Kobo Glo.  I’m a big book lover, too much for my own sake indeed.  I have an account on Goodreads and after entering all my books I’m close to 800 books.  Those books take tons of precious space at my place, my apartment is filled with bookcases and extra shelves, so much there is not much place for anything else.  So yeah, replacing slowly my books by digital versions is quite tempting.  Most of my books, especially the novels, are in French.

But like I said previously, considering the current condition of ebooks in France, replacing those books would be totally crazy and would cost me a fortune.

So I’ve been thinking, what about boycotting the french publishing industry?  My English is good enough to read non-novel books, I should invest now in english novels since that is mostly what I read, authors from the U.S.A. and the U.K. anyway.  So that means that translators who translate from English to French, and the publishing houses that publish those books in French, won’t make any money from me.

Too bad!!!