Google's Vision for the Future of Google Books: EBook Store, Google Editions
Google's vision for Google Books obviously goes far beyond the controversial Google Book Search settlement with the Authors Guild and the AAP. The Google Books settlement mostly dealt with the past and out-of-print books. In a talk at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View last night, however, Google Books' engineering director Dan Clancy laid out a clearer vision of the company's plans for Google Books for the first time. Among other things, the company hopes to create its own electronic bookstore for in-print books. In Google's vision, publishers would partner with the company and offer all of their books through Google and through traditional retailers.
Google's eBook Store in the Cloud
In his remarks, Clancy stressed that he doesn't believe that brick and mortar book retailers will die anytime soon. He did, however, argue that book retailers will have to adapt to the changing environment and start to offer digital copies of books in addition to regular print copies. In Clancy's vision, Google will "syndicate for our partner program all of the books we sell that are new, so that any bookstore can sell a Google edition and find a way that people can buy them in brick and mortar stores as well."
Clancy did stress, however, that books will always be stored in the cloud, so we are not quite sure if this means that users will basically only buy access rights to a book but won't be able to store a copy on their devices for offline reading. As most book publishers are still extremely nervous about the potential for piracy, cloud storage might indeed be a way to alleviate some of these fears for Google.
Google Editions: Readable on Any Device
Clancy also stressed that these "Google editions" should be readable on any device, including laptops, phones, and dedicated eReaders. In addition, Google wants to work with any publisher that is willing to work with Google to offer books in the Google cloud.
Of course, Google's relationship with publishers is rather rocky, so it remains to be seen how many publishers would really want to sign on to this program. At the same time, though, most publishers also aren't exactly happy with Amazon either. What is clear, though, is that Google plans to create its own cloud-based alternative to eBooks stores from established retailers like Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
Thanks to E.E. Boyd from MediaBistro for transcribing Clancy's remarks.
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Google shouldn't be targeting the publishers; they should be targeting the authors. That's my point of view, anyway. The authors are far more likely to be open to publishing their books in this format than publishers are.
This is definitely good news, I would be more than happy to have a Amazon Kindle alternative
Far too many unknowns...even Google hasn't thought it through.
I think it's a bit cloudy...being the search engine and being the retailer as well. I mean, how do you know that Google isn't going to point you to the book they sell over ones they don't? There are plenty of retailers out there selling ebooks. Google is in the business of helping people find information, not selling it. So, Google owns the freeway and now they have a vested interest in closing the off-ramps and leading everyone to the Google store. I see a conflict of interest here.
There is always a way. If users buy a digital copy they should be able to view it in off line mode but you would have to do two things. First, encrypt each page with a specific code and after the user has read the page, you would then offer a discount for the next page and every other page thereafter. But you would only allow for (1) one page to be downloaded at a time. You'll hook the reader into your payment system (Checkout) and reap your own rewards until they have finished reading that book title. At the completion of the user reading a particular book, you could also apply another code so that the original user has some idea as to what books they have read against those they have not.
I know, I know I forfeit all royalties owing to the suggestion...but it's not about scraping, it's helping all of us
appreciate the Internet a little better.
Amazon has made me a lot of money by allowing me to sell my titles through Create Space. Being able to sell through Google would be an even bigger boost.
I don't think the people behind Google were ever trying to rip anyone off. I think what got them in trouble is trying to expand too quickly. Hopefully they will think this through more carefully and do it right the first time.
Jinger Jarrett
August 09 article, as PDF file, in the Mountain View Voice on the interview by John Hollar, CEO of the Computer History Museum.
See P15 in the above PDF
I have publishe a book "Escaping Islam". I would like to know how I could have my book sold on the Google's Ebook?.
I appreciate any help.
Author@escapingIslam.com
I fully agree with Adam Gurri. Please, Google guys, contact me and we shall discuss your publishing of my historical novel "les Mémoires d'Osipov", already available on the net.
I will definitely spread the word, my friends who are more into this thing would love this, thanks for the post.
thx for good idea