{"id":1641,"date":"2018-09-26T15:19:25","date_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:19:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/?p=1641"},"modified":"2018-09-26T15:19:25","modified_gmt":"2018-09-26T04:19:25","slug":"longlisting-of-self-published-title-for-major-prize-angers-french-booksellers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/articles\/2018\/09\/26\/1641\/longlisting-of-self-published-title-for-major-prize-angers-french-booksellers\/","title":{"rendered":"Longlisting of self-published title for major prize angers French booksellers"},"content":{"rendered":"

French booksellers have lashed out at of one of the country\u2019s most prestigious literary prizes for longlisting a self-published novel that’s only available on Amazon, reports\u00a0The Guardian<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

French-Israeli author Marco Koskas\u2019 Bande de Fran\u00e7ais <\/em>was\u00a0self-published on Amazon\u2019s CreateSpace platform, and is among the 17 titles longlisted for this year\u2019s Prix Renaudot.<\/p>\n

The French bookseller’s association (the syndicat de la librairie Fran\u00e7aise), which represents nearly 600 French bookstores, said in a statement<\/a> that the longlisting of the title has put booksellers in an unfair position since ordering the book is \u2018technically and commercially almost impossible\u2019.<\/p>\n

\u2018Morally, especially, they refuse to “jump into the mouth of the wolf” because Amazon is not a competitor like the others.\u00a0It does not just want to become a major player in the book market, it wants to become the market by itself by eliminating its competitors, organising unfair competition, escaping the tax, bypassing the single price of the book, and replacing publishers, distributors and booksellers,\u2019 wrote the association.<\/p>\n

It also warned that including Bande de Fran\u00e7ais<\/em> on the longlist \u2018does a disservice to the author himself, as well as to booksellers, and is a worrying sign for the future of book creation and distribution\u2019.<\/p>\n

However, the author told The Guardian<\/em> that he was \u2018amused and proud\u2019 to find himself selected, adding that the call for him to be excluded was a \u2018great lack of fair play, not to say blackmail\u2019.<\/p>\n

Koskas, who has published traditionally in the past, said that he was forced to self-publish after his book was passed on by traditional publishers.<\/p>\n

\u2018As I didn\u2019t want to bow down to this decision, in the end I decided to self-publish,\u2019 said Koskas.<\/p>\n

He added that bookshops should not be angry with him or with the Prix Renaudot judges, but with the publishers who \u2018made a mistake\u2019 about his book.<\/p>\n

Prix Renaudot judge and author Patrick Besson defended the choice<\/a> of Bande de Fran\u00e7ais<\/em>,\u00a0calling the novel \u2018one of the most original, the most interesting\u2019 of the season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

French booksellers have lashed out at of one of the country\u2019s most prestigious literary prizes for longlisting a self-published novel that’s only available on Amazon, reports\u00a0The Guardian. French-Israeli author Marco Koskas\u2019 Bande de Fran\u00e7ais was\u00a0self-published on Amazon\u2019s CreateSpace platform, and is among the 17 titles longlisted for this year\u2019s Prix Renaudot. The French bookseller’s association<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,20],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1641","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-international-news","7":"category-newsletter"},"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1641"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1641\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1641"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1641"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.booksandpublishing.com.au\/independentpublishing\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1641"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}