Google starts new chapter in the battle for e-books

The internet giant is set to launch an online book store which will see it take on Amazon. Nick Clark reports

Google has opened a new flank in the war for the e-book market as executives this week flew to Germany to sweet-talk publishers into joining their imminent online book store.

The latest drive to dominate digital titles could set it up for a bitter battle with Amazon. Some, however, believe the announcement was little than a political manoeuvre by the web giant, which is also embroiled with publishers in court battles over its Google Book Search project to digitally archive the world's libraries.

The rise of the e-book has dominated talk at the Frankfurt Book Fair this week, and it hit fever pitch when the technology giant revealed its plans for Google Editions next year.

A spokesman for the web giant said: "Google's whole business is based around helping people find the information they need. A large amount of information is not on websites, it is in books, and we want to make sure that these books are not forgotten."

The plan is to launch an online bookstore with about 500,000 titles available to anyone with a web browser in the first half of next year. Google will sell the books itself – taking 37 per cent of the revenues and handing the rest to the publishers – or act as an access point for users to buy through another online retailer with Google keeping a small share of the sales. It wants to create partnerships with thousands of publishers around the world, and paved the way with its pitch in Frankfurt.

Evan Schnittman, vice-president of global business developments at Oxford University Press, said: "This is an interesting opportunity. We are looking for ways of getting our books discovered and allowing customers to buy them the way they want."

He added: "We are trying to do partnerships like this because they are starting to work."

Yet, analysts still feel the details were too scant to make a full judgement on Google's proposals. "The devil is in the detail," Allen Weiner, a senior analyst at Gartner said. He added: "This is a political move to launch at the Frankfurt Book Fair. Google wants to show publishers that its heart is in the right place and showing it would be a good partner to work with. And politically it is a smart move as they want to show the courts they are earnest about working with the industry."

Google Editions builds on Google Book Search, the group's plan to scan out-of-print books and make them searchable for internet users.

Currently anyone with an internet connection, including some e-readers, can access extracts of all of the 10 million books it has scanned, although only a million or so books not protected by copyright can be downloaded in the form of a PDF file.

Editions is likely to be welcomed as a revenue generator by publishers, separate to the concern over Google Book Search, which has locked the group in a five-year battle with authors and publishers. It is currently awaiting court approval for a settlement agreed with the Authors Guild and the Association of American Publishers in October, who sued for copyright infringement in 2005.

The US Department of Justice last month filed a brief with the court saying the settlement should be rejected over issues of antitrust and copyright law. Amazon as well as Microsoft and Yahoo also said the deal was uncompetitive, and with the DoJ brief, Google could well be forced back to the drawing board. The European Union is also looking at the topic.

The e-book industry is gathering steam. Many are predicting that 2010 will be "the year of the e-reader" and the number of devices hitting the market is increasing, with Barnes & Noble, the US bookseller, launching a device next week. Amazon announced this month that it would be shipping its popular Kindle device outside the US for the first time, and it faces competition from the Sony Reader, iRex and Interead's Cool-er device. There is also the spectre of the much-rumoured Apple "tablet" hanging over the market, which is expected some time next year.

Google does not have its own e-reader and is not planning to launch one. A spokesman for Google said: "We don't want to tie users and publishers to any one piece of hardware, they should be able to access their books anywhere, at any time and on any device."

Amazon has a different model. It is currently the market leader in the US. Analysts at Forrester believe three million e-readers will be sold in the US this year, with 60 per cent of the market going to Amazon. Its e-books are formatted only to be read on the Kindle. Google Editions would challenge Amazon, not on devices, but on book sales. But Google played down a potential bust-up. "We would be happy to allow any retailer to act as a reseller of the content we have made available," one insider said. "Amazon could sell access to Google Editions."

It is the Apple tablet, not Google, that Amazon really worries about, Mr Weiner said. "If Apple does come out into this market then it will cut Google's legs out from under it. There are 600 book applications in Apple's App Store. The move into the market is a no-brainer and it is Apple keeping Amazon up at night."