Google To Sell eBooks and Take On Amazon
By Anna Johnson on June 3rd, 2009Google will introduce a program to enable publishers to sell digital versions of their books direct to consumers.
Sharing the plan at last weekend’s annual BookExpo convention in New York, Google’s initiative will see it competing against Amazon, which sells ebooks largely to owners of its Kindle ebook reader device.
Under the program, publishers will give Google digital files of their books and, when people search for them using Google, be able to buy those books directly from Google. Publishers will also be able to set the prices of the ebooks.
This new program is separate from Google’s settlement with authors and publishers over its book-scanning project.
Source: Motoko Rich, “Preparing to Sell E-Books, Google Takes on Amazon,” The New York Times, May 31, 2009
