Books: Consolidation is the big story
By Ben Hall in Paris
Published: August 31 2009 04:06 | Last updated: August 31 2009 04:06
The book publishing industry will have to consolidate if it is to stand up to Amazon, Google and a few other dominant retailers of electronic books, according to the chief executive of Hachette Livre, the world’s second- largest publisher by sales.
Arnaud Nourry said publishers needed to be big to maintain their pricing power in “brutal” talks with the handful of booksellers that would dominate the digital age.
“We are at the beginning of the process of transformation where size and the capacity to impose viable business models will be essential,” he told the Financial Times.
The internet and digitisation were important opportunities to attract new readers and create markets, Mr Nourry said. “E-education” – putting school manuals online with additional interactive tools – was taking educational publishing into the realm of services.