E-Paper
Google joins e-book war with its Editions in June...
US internet search software giant Google plans to sell digital edition of books in late June or July, entering a battle already raging among Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble.
US internet search software giant Google plans to sell digital edition of books in late June or July, entering a battle already raging among Amazon.com, Apple and Barnes & Noble.
Google has been discussing its plan for distributing books online for several years and has been evangelising about its new service, called Google Editions, for several months now, a company official said.
The company will allow users to access books from a broad range of websites using an array of devices, unlike rivals that are focused on proprietary devices and software, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Chris Palma, Google’s manager for strategic-partner development, announced the time table on Tuesday at a publishing industry panel in New York.
Users will be able to buy digital copies of books they discover through the Google book-search service. It will also allow book retailers-even independent shops-to sell Google Editions on their own sites, giving partners the bulk of the revenue, the company said.
Google is still to decide on who will set the price: publishers or itself.
Google Editions users can read books from a web browser, meaning the e-reader device wouldn’t matter. Google plans to optimise reading on certain devices like an iPhone or iPad but has not announced specific plans, the paper said.
