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Thursday, October 22, 2009

Google Editions to launch in 2010

At the recent Frankfurt Book Fair, Google provided more information about its Google Editions program that is set to launch in the U.S. and Europe by June 2010. As mentioned in a previous posting, the program will let publishers sell in-print e-books directly to consumers. The digital books will be stored in a cloud so that users can access the books from any device including laptops, smart phones, and e-readers. According to a posting on the Bookseller.com, once a user has accessed the book from a device, a cached version will be stored so that the book can be read offline from that point on.

Google Editions will allow users to purchase books from three sources: Google Books, partner retailers, and from publisher’s websites. Publishers will benefit from a 63:37 payment split with Google when books are purchased from Google Books and a 45:55 split with the retailer and Google when books are purchased from a retailer. It has not been determined how the payments will be split when the books are bought from publisher websites.

In addition, a posting from Yahoo! Tech News notes that about half a million books will be available when Google Edition launches. Details about which online retailers will participate have not been announced.