Paperbacks in France, a mini-rant

[SaligoBay]

It's a disgrace, I tell you, a disgrace.  How do they expect people to read if a paperback novel is 20 euros, eh eh eh?  I ask you.   The last Harry Potter was 28 or 30 euros.  Ridiculous!

And have you seen the size of the Da Vinci Code in French?   Ils éxagèrent!!   AND you have to pronounce it "da van-sea" or nobody knows what you're talking about (although it has to be said that this is not a new experience for me ).

Nuff said.  I'm off to play with my new hoover.  It has a delta-winged sucking bit, so I can pretend to be a fighter pilot. 

[Mistral]

And what about when they split a novel into two and you have to pay twice? For one Tom Clancy novel I thought I had missed a book because my husband had two with the same name but  tome 1 and tome 2, but no, it was the same book suite au prochaine tome....

Re, Da vinci, I've got used to that just as I've had to learn to talk about Bet-ov for Beethoven and vangogg for Van gogh. I used to work in a collège Van Gogh (in Arles of course) and I could never get people to understand where I worked.

Don't shoot too many people with the hoover

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Aren't the big paperbacks just the equivalent of uk hardbacks? Strictly for those with more money than sense or those who have already found time to read everything available in livres poches or equivalent... pretty much everything comes out in cheap and cheerful format eventually, doesn't it? There are some exceptions, I remember paying a small fortune for some of the big paperbacks for literature and philosophy courses but... those were books that not enough people would read to justify a cheap edition.

[Teamedup]

You have to pay to join the bibliotheque in our village, but they will get all the latest books in and my friend simply borrows them. Much cheaper. I don't like the look of paperbacks here. And I really hate the punctuation when there is dialogue, I've never got used to that.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

Ooh yes, there's a village not too far from here with a library that you have to pay to join... so I've joined one in a town a bit further away which is free and as you say has lots of the latest books as soon as they come out, not to mention cds & dvds (also magazines & bds, haven't touched on them yet)... I keep renewing things I haven't even opened never mind read...

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

[quote]It's a disgrace, I tell you, a disgrace. How do they expect people to read if a paperback novel is 20 euros, eh eh eh? I ask you. The last Harry Potter was 28 or 30 euros. Ridiculous! And have y...[/quote]

I've never understood the pricing of books in France. Livre de Poche are very cheap compared to books in England and the French Harry Potter books we have are cheap ones. But have you also noticed how thin the paper is? Sometimes when I'm reading a book in French, I think that I've not much left to read because it looks so thin, then it takes ages to get through it.

But as you say, there are also these larger paper back books. I recently bought a Brigitte Le Varlet book from a second hand stall in Le Bugue. It's original price was 89 francs - quite a lot and the only date I can find on it is 1985. I think I paid about 6 or 8 Euros for it, and thought that expensive second hand. But I never can see any books by her in France normally, so I bought it anyway. I'd had one of her books previously from a second hand bookshop in Vaison La Romaine and that hadn't been cheap either - not for a 2nd hand book.

Anyway, I've just ordered Fontebrune from Amazon.fr Marketplace and it was only 2 Euros!!!! OK, so postage is 3.00, but still cheaper than from a second hand bookstall! The quality of the paper is better in these larger books. Now I look at it, although the book is bigger, I imagine it only has the same sort of number of words as the livre de poche books.

Isn't it annoying though that there isn't a standard size in books. You go in these libraries in castles etc and they have all the books lined up beautifully. But it's a real pain trying to get books sorted out onto shelves at home because of all the different sizes! It makes it impossible to keep books by the same author on the same shelves sometimes.

[hoverfrog]

while on the subject of books, there appears to be a publisher called La Veytizou in La Veytisou (Neuvic Entier) but I can't find anyone that sells any of their books! As they will be in the same village as us from january I was hoping to get ahead of the game and read something, but although there are numerous hits with google no-one sells the things - and some of them look really interseting!

Anyone got any ideas?

[letrangere]

 I don't like the look of paperbacks here. And I really hate the punctuation when there is dialogue

Fully agree.  They are exhorbitant and why so often are the covers made of that blotting paper type stuff that scuffs so easily?  Then we have the question of the titles on the spine going the "wrong" way as discussed recently.  And does anyone know why dialogue isn't punctuated as it is in English, I always find it curious and, yes, it can be hard to follow sometimes. 

Sudden thought, there's TVA on books, isn't there?  So that could partly account for higher price.  And what sort of volumes do French novels generally sell at?  Perhaps it's a simple matter of economics?

M

ps: don't Forum members have nice dogs?  Pucette's should be mentioned in dispatches for good behaviour and hoverfrog's?  Quite adorable.

 

 

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

http://www.lefigaro.fr/culture/20041130.FIG0184.html gives a couple of clues:

Seule Amélie Nothomb fait aussi bien, sans avoir obtenu le moindre prix, avec 265 000 exemplaires tirés - her latest book, released at the rentrée, has sold as well as any.

Marguerite Duras en 1984, avec 2,4 millions d'exemplaires vendus de l'Amant. On a rarement fait mieux.

I've no idea what good sales of novels produced in English are but I was under the impression that they are generally much higher, hence the high price of books in France and the poorer quality of the first editions.

[Mistral]

Yes, there's TVA on them and some law (loi Lang I think) means that they can't be sold at less than 5% their original price so you don't get such good deals on them.

Quite agree about the punctuation in the dialogues. Not clear at all.

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

I still can't see where people are coming from on this topic, saying books are expensive in France. I have in front of me a paperback which cost 6E50 six months ago. Discworld, for example - same size book - are £6.99 over here. A Bernard Werber book - 6E10 2 years ago - Discworld were £6.99 even then. It seems to me that the average paperback is cheaper in France and even the more expensive larger paperbacks are the chiffres in Euros that they would be in chiffres in pounds - therefore one third cheaper.

Am I right in thinking though, that you cannot get offers on books in France? I try to get what I can in Waterstones and Smiths on 2 for the price of 1 or £3 off (on the hardbacks) and then get the rest from Amazon which is usually cheaper - although not always.

[SaligoBay]

As Pucette says, they're probably the equivalent of hardback editions in English.   Fortunately I don't need to buy the expensive Da Vinci Code in French at 20.90 euros (Amazon.fr price), because I've already read it for less than that in English.

I have in my possession a borrowed paperback copy of Marc Levy's "Sept Jours pour une Eternité", nearly dropped it in the bath when I saw the 20-euro price.

And I still think the Harry Potter was a complete rip-off!    In the UK they were selling for what, £10 or less?  Based on that, I promised to get my son's friend a copy for his Christmas.  30 euros, with "special offer" price of 28!!!!

[Jill<br><br>Jill (99)]

I think those Harry Potter Books you saw must be the posh versions, because we have several Harry Potter books in French and they were cheaper than the English paperbacks. I'll try to dig one out tomorrow to check price and printer, but they are in my daughter's room and she's asleep now. We did see some posh versions at my penfriend's house, which were very expensive.

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

I recently paid 6euros for a copy of "sept jours pour une étérnité".

[SaligoBay]

IMHO, 6 euros is all it's worth! 

[SaligoBay]

Harry Potter - tome 1 is about 6 euros, but volume 5, a year after it came out, is still 26.60 euros on Amazon.  Vraiment trop cher!

[Pucette<P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3>Pucette<FONT><P><FONT face="Times New Roman" size=3><P class=MsoNormal style="MARGIN: 0cm 0cm 0pt">"Qui ne connaît pas la campagne lhiver, ne connaît pas la campagne et ne connaît pas]

exactly, why pay more?