Google editions platform to launch for electronic-Books

Google is launching a new service for book seller next year called Google Edition, which will let readers buy books and read them anywhere on gadgets ranging from cell phones to possibly e-book devices.

It’s the first foray into charging for books for the Mountain Views California-based company, which began its Google Books program in 2004.

Tom Turvey, head of Google Book Search’s publisher partnership program, said the price per book would be set by their publishers and would start with between 400,000 to 600,000 books next year...

“It will be browser-based access” Turvey said yesterday at the 61st Frankfurt Book Fair. “The way the e-book market will evolve is by accessing the book from anywhere, form an access point of view and also from a geographical point of view.”

Google will collect 55 percent of the profits, Turvey said, giving a “vast majority” of that to retailers, and the rest will go to the publisher.

“Google Edition allows retail partners to sell the books, especially those who haven’t invested in a digital platform,” he said. “We expect the majority will go to retail partners not go Google. We are a whole seller, a book distributor.”

H added that Google Editions will be the first time the company will try to monetize their books project. The transactions must be simple he said, and one possibility will be suing the already existing transaction platform Google Checkout.

Electronic books are gaining in popularity, led in part by devices like Amazone.com ‘s Kindle and rival Sony’s new Reader Pocket Edition.

In 2008, US e-book sales totaled $113million-up 68 percents from 2007 but still a fraction of the estimated $24.3 billion spent on all books, according to the Association of American Publishers.

Sony’s e-Book Store includes more than 100,000 books, as well as a million free public-domain books available from Google through its Google Books project. The Kindle Store currently has more than 330,000 available titles.

The Kindle can only download books from Amazon’s online store, while Sony’s Readers can display texts sold in the “epub” format-an open standard supported by the International Digital Publishing Forum that numerous publishers use to make e-books. (Sited from Cambodia Dialy News)