Mountain View, California — After months of planning, global search engine leader Google on Monday unveiled its much anticipated e-book-only bookstore, Google eBooks, a new service for buying and reading digital books, puts the firm in competition with Amazon, Apple and Borders for the ballooning electronic-book market.
The service, stamped as Google eBookstore, allows users to access books they buy from anywhere using a device with a web browser, such as a personal computer or smartphone, with a roster of 3 million books available for sale and playable on multiple ereader devices, including Barnes & Noble’s Nook and Apple’s iPad. Moreover, unlike competing services, Google eBooks is cloud-based, meaning you do not need a dedicated device to read books — virtually any browser will do.
Google’s existing e-books service, Google Books, which provides the full text of many public-domian book, will be integrated into Google eBooks. The move, at the start confined for the U.S. customers only, also marks the first real retail venture for the search and online-advertising behemoth, if you do not count the Android app market.
“The fundamental concept is buy anywhere and read anywhere,” said James Crawford, an engineer for Google eBooks, who emphasized that the system makes it easy to read the same book on multiple devices. “The primary architecture is cloud-based, and you never wonder where to put your books.”
The debut of Google’s store presents a huge challenge to No. 1 Amazon, which will sell an estimated $248 million in digital books this year, according to a projection by Credit Suisse Group. Amazon’s share of digital book sales could dwindle down from about 72% now to 35% in 2015, estimates Credit Suisse, due to competition from Apple and Google.
When shopping Google eBooks, users will be able to buy directly from Google or from one of its bookseller partners, including Powell’s and Alibris. Wherever you buy, your books are all kept in the same place. The books that has been demonstrated Monday look, at first glance, to be priced almost identical with Amazon and Barnes and Noble, with a minor exceptions (Cross Fire, by James Patterson, is $14.99 at Google’s store, compared to $12.99 at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.) Most popular books are priced between $9.99 and $12.99.
Furthermore to browser-based reading, Google eBooks will feature apps for both iOS and Android devices. Font, type size, and line spacing are all said to be customizable. Since your books are stored online — with unlimited storage — they are automatically synced between all your devices.
Google says its Google eBookstore houses the vast collection of ebooks online, thanks to its six-year process of scanning out-of-print library books that make up a large chunk of its online library. The company claims that it will have more books in its catalog than any other online bookstore — more than 3 million titles, but only about 200,000 of those are books licensed from publishers.
Nevertheless, Google is seeking to individualize itself from Amazon and its most celebrated Kindle reader by selling books that can be read on a large number of devices, from iPhones, iPads and Android-based devices, along with computers running any browser that can use JavaScript.
“The idea is that you buy where you are and read on devices you already own,” Crawford said. “We are committed to open structure, and building up a wider and wider retailer network.”
Google in 2004 initiated a project to digitize all books around the world in partnership with major libraries, and has scanned some 15 million books from more than 100 countries so far. As the project attracted criticism over its handling of in-copyright, out-of-print books, Google pursued the eBookstore project, formerly called Google Editions, working with its publishing partners.
“There have been lots of self-proclaimed ‘game changers’ in digital publishing, but Google eBookstore is truly a powerhouse,” said Tanya Hall, business development manager at Greenleaf Book Group LLC, an independent publisher and distributor based in Texas.
“Unlike hardware-specific channels such as Kindle, with Google, books can be discovered, purchased and accessed through any device. We are moving into a period where print and digital products can co-exist,” she said.
Google is expected to roll-out a similar service by March in Europe and during 2011 in Japan. Google’s entry into the bookselling business, with its vast collection of digital books, is likely to expand the growing reach of electronic books. The venture is yet another attempt by Google to diversify its money making strategy. That is the key for the company’s long-term health since it derives nearly all its revenue (nearly $5.5 billion in the third quarter of 2010) from online ads, with the majority of that coming from text ads on its own properties.
To hear more about Google Books, check out our Talking Tech video interview with Dougall.