Google Editions e-book service launching this summer

Think Google is content to simply make public domain books freely available for e-book readers? Not quite -- the company has just confirmed that its previously announced Google Editions e-book service will finally be launching in late June or July. That service will apparently let folks buy digital copies of books they find through Google's existing book search service, and let book retailers sell Google Editions on their own site and retain the "bulk of the revenue." Details are otherwise still pretty light, including any word of pricing or publishers involved, but Google has previously said that it planned to make between 400,000 and 600,000 books available with prices set by the publishers.

[camiller Posted May 4th 2010 2:40PM]

No mention of format support. I assume epub, which would be good. Most of the ebook readers support epub (except Kindle) and Googles existing public domain library is in epub.

[kspraydad Posted May 4th 2010 10:20PM]

@camiller If they use epub for sold books it'll have to wrapped in drm...hopefully Adobe's Drm which is the most widely accepted (now that excludes Apple and Kindle)

[hero785 Posted May 4th 2010 2:54PM]

@mr88
So far MS, Amazon, and I think Apple are trying to block google's move to digitize prints. They are fighting againts google and so is the writers guild. I don't see an issue in digitize prints especially if you are guaranteed huge chunk of revenue and you still have the ownership. I love reading and would love to have all my books in some sort of electronic form and save some trees (not a tree hugger but environmental aware). So lets see how it plays out.

[jakey Posted May 4th 2010 3:04PM]

Looks like Google is expanding. I guess we can expect some kind of ebook reader from them (kind of expected given the Nook and the Alex Reader run on Android). Hopefully, they have community features similar youtube, so authors can publish their own books (they can integrate it into Google docs).

[NIMBUS Posted May 4th 2010 4:29PM]

@jakey
google fan-fic :) ... would be cool

[brianshall Posted May 4th 2010 3:47PM]

Does anyone at Google have any idea what their mission actually is anymore? Google is the only company I know actively trying to evolve itself - back - into a dinosaur.

[HTCAndroidTre Posted May 4th 2010 4:23PM]

@brianshall
lmaoooo what??!!
you obviously have the brains of a dinosaur of you think that adding a new feature to your os will make the os less... uhh better than it already is.

[legendary1022 Posted May 4th 2010 4:02PM]

Google isn't copying Apple, they are COMPETING against Apple. It's what companies do, especially ones in the same industry. 600k books, good God thats a nice selection. Can't wait for the day their app gets rejected by Apple lol

Oh well, still waiting for my android tablet. Any day now manufactures. Were waiting

[bluefisch200 Posted May 4th 2010 4:34PM]

Who cares about that...fix the fragmentation problem of Android...raaahhhh

[Rpie74 Posted May 4th 2010 5:36PM]

Man, Apple and Google are on a full blown collision course.
Can't wait to see how it all ends.

[Wesscoast Posted May 4th 2010 8:08PM]

Jeff Jarvis eat your heart out.

Can you imagine how fugly a Google Edition is going to look next to a Kindle book or an iBook on an iPad?

*shudder

[kspraydad Posted May 4th 2010 9:35PM]

@Wesscoast Yeah...because fake wood grain digital bookshelves are so awesome.

[brotherfranciz Posted May 10th 2010 6:52PM]

@Wesscoast

Have you ever heard of the saying "never judge a book by its cover"?

Yeah, the first thing Kindle/iPad users do before they buy a book is judge whether the cover is "fugly".

*shudder

[patrick73 Posted May 4th 2010 8:17PM]

how about prices ? i do understand publishers concern over amazon 9.99 price but as a consumer that is a hard/great price to get over . so we just wawant to pay under 10 bucks.will google do that ?

[grobbo Posted May 4th 2010 11:00PM]

Awesome!
Google will provide hard-core competition for the incumbents.
Result: better prices and options for us consumers

[MegaJapan Posted May 5th 2010 12:41AM]

Next up is Google making a music store... No seriously, they're the only ones that can compete with iTunes. Even Amazon doesn't get close.