With their adorable bindings and satisfyingly uniform size, French books are fun to buy but maybe not so much fun to carry home in your suitcase. Now Ebookez-vous, the US version of popular French e-book store Numilog, is putting 70,000 French books at the fingertips of American readers.
The site is bilingual and targets readers of French living in the US, whether francophone or just francophile. Essays, literature, science, and even French translations of English books, anyone looking to read in French will likely find their pleasure here. “The promotion of certain books will depend on current trends in French literature and culture and the specific expectations of our readership in the United States,” according to Numilog, which created Ebookez-vous and is the fourth largest e-book seller in France.
Numilog CEO Denis Zwirn says that offering French books to US-based readers is only a first step towards further development Stateside where e-books are far more popular than they are in France. “The idea is to develop a more general e-book platform,” he explains, “We’re starting with French literature because that’s our area of expertise. But little by little we are going to sign agreements with American editors and increase our offerings of books in English.”
For now, books purchased on Ebookez-vous can be read on tablets, smartphones, computers and certain open readers like the Nook (but not Amazon’s Kindle). An English-language application for Android is also available. Numilog plans to sell its own e-reader in the US in 2015, and their offering of French books continues to grow. “We’ve signed deals with Hachette, Editis and Albin Michel, and we hope to add others in the coming months,” says Zwirn.
And if you love French writing but don’t know the language, don’t fret. Ebookez-vous offers an increasing number of English translations of French titles.
