Google takes next step in battle against Kindle
Google may still be fighting a court battle in the digital books market, but it’s ready for business. The firm has announced its first steps to begin charging for electronic titles.
The Google Editions service will begin next year with around half a million books available to buy. Unlike Amazon’s Kindle service, it won’t require a dedicated device and will instead be viewable from any Web browser, whether than be on a computer or a smartphone. In most cases users will be able to cache the book so that they can read it on the same device when they go offline.
The 500,000 or so titles will make Google the market leader, beating the 350,000 available of the Kindle. That could be misleading if it includes out-of-copyright titles; if it does, those would presumably be much lower priced. Unlike the Kindle, prices of copyrighted titles will be set by publishers.
At first glance, it appears Google will make a very healthy cut from sales: for purchases from the Google Editions, publishers will get 67 percent of the revenue, with the remaining 33 percent going to Google.
However, the firm says it expects most sales to be through third-party retailers. In those cases the publisher gets 45 percent. Most of the remaining 55 percent will go to the retailer, though an unspecified “small” chunk will be paid to Google.
The third-party retailer option is an interesting one as it could create opportunities for sites specializing in particular types of book who can drive sales by offering expert opinion such guides to titles, as well as appealing directly to a specialist audience.
Going solely by the raw numbers, it looks like a healthy option. However, it’s yet to be proven that readers will have an appetite for books on anything other than a specially designed device such as the Kindle. Google doesn’t have much hope of matching the Kindle’s sales-per-customer figures, but the sheer size of its potential audience – anyone with a Web browser – might make up for it.
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