Google plans 'buy anywhere, read anywhere' offer
14.10.09 | Catherine Neilan
Google is poised to launch its "buy anywhere, read anywhere" digital books programme Google Editions simultaneously in the US, UK and Europe within the first half of next year.
Speaking at the Tools of Change conference in Frankfurt, Amanda Edmonds, Google's director of strategic partnerships, said the programme would be rolled out by June. Edmonds said one of the strengths of Google's offering was that once bought, the e-book would exist in a "cloud library", which could be accessed from potentially any device, including laptops, "smart phones" or e-readers. "As long as you can get onto the library, you can access it," Edmonds said. "All books will live in the same library, so it doesn't matter where you buy it or where you read it."
Once a book has been accessed on a given device, a cached version will exist, making it possible for readers to access the book offline. "There's a really complex set of offerings out there for the consumer. Our concept is that it should be open: they shouldn't have to pick the device, software or retailer," said Edmonds.
Google Editions has three business models: to allow the consumer to buy the e-book via Google Books; to buy it from a partner retailer; or from a publisher's own website. Payment will be split 63/37 in the publisher's favour through the first route, while if the book is bought from a retailer, the publisher will take 45%, with the remaining 55% split between retailer and Google. Edmonds said discussions were "just beginning" as to what split that would be. She added no split had been decided on for books bought via a publisher's site.
Edmonds said Google may discount books from their list price in countries where this is permitted, however the discount would be taken from Google's slice of the profit, not the publisher's.
Existing retail and publisher partnerships that the company has through its Google Preview programme are expected to pave the way for groups to sign up. W H Smith, Blackwell and The Book Depository are existing partners, as are thousands of UK publishers.
Edmonds said it was "definitely" Google's intention to partner with device manufacturers, but declined to give names. She added she "doubted" Kindle would be on board.
The one topic Edmonds would not comment on was the Google Settlement.
Comments on this article
By Ben Werdmuller
This way of thinking about it has been required for quite some time, and I'm really pleased to see a large company go for it. For "device manufacturers", I'm reasonably certain we can read, "Apple" and "Android handset manufacturers".14 Oct 09 11:06
By David Sucher
Cloud computing limits where you can read a book. Accessing a guidebook on, say, wildflowers while on the side of Mount Rainier will be impossible. As guidebooks (travel, wildlife, sports etc) seem to me to be one of the prime money-makers for (ebook) publishers such a cloud-based system strikes me as foolish and unappealing.14 Oct 09 13:31
By Dave Morris
David - good point, but if I was hiking up Mount Rainier in the old days, I would have to plan ahead and take my book of wild flowers and my guidebook of birds. So all I need to do is access the cloud library before I set out, then I've got them on my Android or whatever for reading as and when needed.14 Oct 09 13:59
By John
'buy anywhere, read anywhere' It might be more appropriate for Google to say "pirate anything, sell everything" since that's what their library scanning programme amounts to. Ironically for this discussion, the ReCaptcha system used on this blog to validate submissions is owned by Google and used in their digitization of texts.14 Oct 09 18:35
By Bookmark
As I said in my comments on the Doctorow article, the publisher industry is teetering on a tipping point in regards complete change of major publishing players because the existing ones are not thinking laterally and are running scared of the inevitable evolution to digital. New players - untraditional "publisher" with exciting new distribution channels will emerge and, to some degree, sweep away the most intellectually lazy of publishers. In regards the "cloud library" and Google I rest my case. Come on, traditional publishers, it's about time you started putting all those "big brains" together and worked out how you are going to survive the next ten years, and to do that you are going to have to throw away the rule book and your preconceptions and reservations about change! The excuse of "Oh, we've never done it like that so therefore it's not going to work" will be your epitaphs.15 Oct 09 04:23
