Exclusive: This morning Amazon was particularly pleased to announce the arrival of unlimited service subscription reading, Kindle Unlimited, Spain and Italy. Unlike Amazon forecasts, the Unlimited service is still not available in France, following negotiations more difficult than expected. Intangible digital distributor even warned clients: Unlimited deal with Kindle would be to shoot themselves in the foot, or worse
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Trench warfare Amazon, more difficult than expected
(Tambako The Jaguar, CC BY-ND 2.0 )
Kindle Unlimited service since its launch in the US last July, put forward an impressive catalog: 700,000 shares, against a paltry subscription available for $ 9.99 per month. However, extending this catalog was essentially constituted by autopubliés titles, Amazon offers an advantageous remuneration to independent authors.
Publishers, for their part, have not opened the floodgates big, fearing cannibalization phenomenon of unit sales, and thus a drop in their income. Amazon has nonetheless continued to expand Kindle Unlimited, with commissioned in the UK, and Spain and Italy.
But the same reluctance of publishers is imposed everywhere: the 700,000 titles ever developed by the department to convince consumers, only 25,000 are available in Spanish, Italian and 15,000. In other words, only English readers have a really good offer with Kindle Unlimited, compared to other services play unlimited subscription.
Tough negotiations in France
In the weeks leading up to the launch of the Kindle Unlimited service, Amazon had already begun to solicit publishers and distributors. Last July, the US firm even imagined to offer the service in September in France, as in the rest of Europe, obviously. The problem is that negotiations have not spent as well as expected, at least in France: a critical mass of digital books available for the launch of the service was not reached – more or less 25,000 shares , according to estimates.
According to our information, the Intangible distributor, which has between 450 and 600 traditional publishers or pure players , has informed that the negotiations with the US company would not pass him by. The reason is very simple: the Amazon model, far from creating a new market, will simply cannibalize sales unit.
The digital distributor made a simple calculation, arriving at a loss of more than 40% of revenues for the publisher when a book is consumed with unlimited subscription service, in relation to a unit sale. However, the conversion rate of customers who are trying to offer 30 free days and decide to subscribe to the pay offer, encourages customers to consider préféront this mode of consumption – resulting immediate financial loss for publishers, and therefore authors.
Intangible But do not put everyone in the same basket. On the one hand, as we know, the methods of calculating remuneration vary dramatically depending provided by different providers business models. The fundamental difference between Amazon and companies like Youboox YouScribe or, to speak only of France, however, does not stop there.
Indeed, no other platform has the contractual conditions of Amazon, not only, the publisher must agree to provide the same catalog for Kindle and other platforms Unlimited, but above the minimum period commitment is 3 to 6 months. “ Even if you do make available a reasonable proportion of your catalog in this offer, you feed and encourage a mode of consumption deadly for you and for the whole book chain whose only winner will be the firm Amazon , “said the dealer.
Do not put your finger in gear
and advise fervently customers service publishers, not not “ put your finger in this cycle .” Loss of earnings for the publisher, understandably imply a loss for the retailer, which leaves everyone free to act – while work on pedagogy risks.
Other observers point out that “ France has alternatives, unlike Spain and Italy. Amazon is not in a position of absolute supremacy at home, because many retailers exist, and whoop to live catalogs . ” In all cases, the first failure is suffered by American, and it certainly does not help to sign other houses.
all the reservations expressed by Hachette in the United States on the issue of unlimited membership is already known: there is no reason to believe that politics would be different in France, and that the group would open this solution, as if by magic. It’s the same, despite the enthusiasm, it seems, expressed by Alain Kouck , CEO of Editis: his group has not signed with any of the French actors. Remains to consider the position of Gallimard / Flammarion, or Threshold / La Martinière.
According to our information, many editors still watch unlimited subscription as questionable solutions under the law of one price on the ebook offers. “ A subscription offer, sell whatsoever, the retail price is not set by the publisher is essentially contrary to the law “, we précisait- it recently. This gives one more reason to send an end of inadmissibility to the US giant …
As for the idea Amazon Kindle could usher Unlimited with its single author autopubliés catalog, it lends some observers to smile.
To further
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Subscription books: Unlimited Kindle have killed the competition
Subscription unlimited Kindle opened in Germany with 50,000 ebooks
Unlimited Kindle, Amazon’s subscription service for reading digital and unlimited has been launched in Spain and Italy. 
Amazon launched its Kindle subscription service Unlimited (KU) in the US, Germany and Britain. On Tuesday, the web giant announced the arrival of digital reading service with unlimited in Spain and Italy. 
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