Google today launched its ebookstore - a development that promises to impact book publishing and publishers. It certainly seems to be an exciting one for consumers who are waffling about which ereader to ask Santa for, trying to parse the various pros and cons of dealing with the proprietary platforms of bn.com versus amazon.com versus Apple.
The captivating feature of Google ebooks is that, instead of downloading the ebook, the reader accesses it from a "cloud." This means a single ebook purchase from Google will theoretically be accessible from the buyer's ereader, tablet, computer and/or smartphone. Google ebooks will even save the reader's place when he or she is accessing the book across several platforms. While there are exceptions (due to publishers rights issues), and it's too early to know the pitfalls, it's a pretty compelling idea.
The new Google ebookstore site offers a great, short explanatory video as well as an "eBooks" tab that contains helpful, information about the eBooks offered, their features and the exceptions to their promoted services. The store is simply designed and, in addition to "hundreds of thousands" of books from publishers, Google claims to offer nearly 3 million free, public-domain books.
Google ebookstore launch appears to be a good thing for independent booksellers as well as their loyal customers--Google is partnering with bookstores (such as Powell's Books in Portland, Oregon), giving those booksellers the ability to offer their customers an ebook-buying option with broad choices.
There will be more to come as the impact of the Google ebooks store is fully realized on consumers and on the bookselling industry.
Image: Google
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