June 1, 2009 at 18:03Google will begin selling e-books
The BookExpo book exhibition in New York was unexpectedly visited by Google. The NY Times reported that in backstage talks they made it clear to publishers that they were going to present them with a way to make money selling digital copies of books. In this case, Google will become a direct competitor to the online store Amazon.com, which promotes this line of business, including through the proprietary "reader" of e-books Kindle.
In the Google Books online store, users can read up to 20% of the book’s content for free. There will also be links to other online stores where you can buy a paper copy of the book. In negotiations with publishers, Google promised to give them freedom in determining prices (Amazon sets prices independently, with many books being sold at a loss to promote the platform).
The commercial Google service will be integrated into the Google Books service , within the framework of which more than 7 million books have already been scanned, and one and a half million of them are available for free access.
I must say that this Google initiative is very similar to the methods of commercializing Youtube. Paid content will soon appear on this formerly free video service too .
In the Google Books online store, users can read up to 20% of the book’s content for free. There will also be links to other online stores where you can buy a paper copy of the book. In negotiations with publishers, Google promised to give them freedom in determining prices (Amazon sets prices independently, with many books being sold at a loss to promote the platform).
The commercial Google service will be integrated into the Google Books service , within the framework of which more than 7 million books have already been scanned, and one and a half million of them are available for free access.
I must say that this Google initiative is very similar to the methods of commercializing Youtube. Paid content will soon appear on this formerly free video service too .