Google’s much-delayed entry into the e-book market, Google Editions, is set to launch by the end of 2010, according to today’s Wall Street Journal. If Editions does appear, the e-bookstore could rival those now offered by Apple and Amazon.
The competing e-bookstore will arrive in the U.S. by the “end of the month and internationally in the first quarter of next year,” the report quotes Google product management director Scott Dougall. Google Editions would differ from both Apple and Amazon by allowing access to e-books through almost any Web browser, rather than connected to specific devices, such as the iPad, iPhone or Kindle.
Among the signs of an imminent launch of Google Editions are contracts with booksellers and Google having received files with publishers. “Many major publishers” have signed onto the Google project with hundreds of thousands of books ready to purchase and “millions more for free,” according to the report.
Although Apple announced in June it had 22 percent of the e-book market, selling more than 5 million digital titles in a little over two months, the owner of publisher Sourcebooks, Inc. told the Journal Google could quickly get 20 percent of the market. The CEO of HarperCollins agrees, telling the newspaper Google Edition’s device agnostic nature provides the Mountain View, Calif. firm a “competitive advantage,” particularly with the increasing number of mobile reading devices.
However, the head of Border’s bookselling division, Michael Edwards, believes it may not be worth the effort to follow Google. “I don’t see the advantage in pushing their content, especially since it may be small in terms of total revenue.”
According to Forrester Research, 15 million e-readers and tablets will be sold in 2010, a five-fold increase over the 2.8 million e-readers sold in 2009. If correct, Apple may have a large advantage, given it had sold over 7 million iPads by the end of September.
