Google To Enter eBook Market!

The ebook market is getting crowded. First there was the Sony Bookreader, then the Amazon Kindle, the Barnes & Noble Nook, and, most recently, the Apple iPad also is a general-purpose device that becomes an excellent ebook reader. Each producing company sells tens of thousands of books through it's own proprietary store and each company's offerings can only be read on the hardware device sold by that company. Until now.


Google has now announced that it is entering the crowded ebook market and, best of all, the books will be readable on almost any desktop computer, laptop computer, or most any mobile gadget that features a full Web browser. Books will be purchased directly from Google and also from retailers who will keep the majority of the money earned. The new service will be called Google Editions.

NOTE: Today's announcement of the new Google Editions is not related to Google Books, a service that has been scanning out-of-print books in libraries. The new Google Editions will only sell books obtained directly from publishers.

Analysts at the Yankee Group have predicted that the US ebook reader market is "about to catch fire sparking from $1.3 billion in revenue in 2010 to $2.5 billion by 2013". Now other industry watchers have said Google Editions will boost those figures further still.

At this stage Google has not revealed how much it will charge users to access digital books through Google Editions.

Chris Palma, Google's manager for strategic-partner development, said at a publishing event today Google expects to launch Google Editions as early as late June or July, according to the Wall Street Journal.

***Disclosure: The above is reprinted from EOGN with permission from Dick Eastman.