French publishers to set up single e-books portal

France's three major e-book vendors have agreed to form a common platform for e-books, a move culture minister Frederic Mitterand has been supporting for several months as a way to stimulate the French-language e-book market and counter the strength of US internet giants such as Amazon and soon Google. Les Echos writes that Eden Livres (formed by publishers Gallimard, Flammarion and Le Seuil), Numilog (Hachette Livre) and Eplatforme (Editis, Media Participation, Michelin) announced the alliance, long awaited by book sellers such as Fnac. Through this single point of entry, bookstores will be able to access the whole catalogue of the publishers' electronic books. Numilog, for example, offers over 54,000 titles in digital format. A joint press release states that the initiative will be followed the autumn launch of French independent bookstores' e-commerce portal, 1001libaraires.com. The national e-book market remains marginal, but the arrival of the Apple iPad on 28 May could be a catalyst, even if consumers will have to wait until the end of the year to be able to read e-books on the tablet in France, according to the report. Hachette Livre CEO Arnaud Nourry recently said that e-book sales could account for 15 percent of total book sales within five to seven years. In the US, e-books generated nearly 5 percent of overall book sales in 2009.