Google Editions turns the page on e-books

While Amazon and Apple offer closed, proprietary e-book platforms, Google Editions looks like it will offer a lot more freedom. That's great for businesses of all sizes, writers, and readers.

The Wall Street Journal reported that Google plans to launch an e-book store in late June or July. Later, a Google spokesman confirmed in e-mail that the company plans the service in the "middle of the year," which is around the same time as the Journal reported.

The Google spokesman forwarded a link to an April 26 New Yorker article on the emerging e-book conflict, focusing on Apple, Amazon and book publishers. In particular, the spokesman said he could vouch for the accuracy of this paragraph, which describes a service called Google Editions:

[Dan Clancy, the engineer who directs Google Books], said that the store’s e-books, unlike those from Amazon or Apple, will be accessible to users on any device. Google Editions will let publishers set the price of their books, he said, and will accept the agency model. Having already digitized twelve million books, including out-of-print titles, Google will have a far greater selection than Amazon or Apple. It will also make e-books available for bookstores to sell, giving “the vast majority” of revenues to the store, Clancy said. He suggested that in trying to dominate the market Amazon and Apple were taking the wrong approach to business online. “It’s much more of an open ecosystem, where you find a way for bricks-and-mortar stores to participate in the future digital world of books,” he said. “We’re quite comfortable having a diverse range of physical retailers, whereas most of the other players would like to have a less competitive space, because they’d like to dominate.”

There's a lot of information in that paragraph, so let's walk through it.

Google is allowing publishers to set the price of their books, and that's a big deal. Price-setting is the main quarrel publishers have with Amazon.com; Amazon sells e-books for a flat $9.99, taking a loss on the e-books in order to gain market dominance, according to the New Yorker. Amazon has learned from Apple's iTunes experience, by gaining market dominance, with 80-90% market share, Amazon thinks it can later bend publishers to its will.

The "agency model" means the publishers will be the retailers, and the direct seller -- in this case, Google -- will take a cut of the sale price, the New Yorker explains. That's what allows the publishers, rather than Google, to set the sales price.

Google's plan to make e-books available for bookstores to sell directly is also a big deal, as small, independent bookstores are being driven out of business by Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and big-box retailers, the New Yorker explains. The Journal says that merchants will be able to sell Google e-books on their own Web sites.

One point I haven't been able to confirm: The Journal reported that the e-books would be readable in Web browsers. That's great, because it makes the e-books device independent. On the other hand: Will you be able to bookmark your place and come back to it later, after you've closed the Web page and re-opened it? Will you be able to download e-books for offline reading? You can do both of those things with the Amazon Kindle and Apple iBooks.

Will the e-books be available in a standard format so the buyer can have some assurance he'll be able to read them in years or even decades? Google says its e-book strategy includes an electronic bookshelf for the books you access through Google, "so you can come back and access [them] whenever you want in the future." Is that true? Or would it be more accurate to add the clause, "as long as Google continues to offer the service." This is important because books have a long shelf life (so to speak). I'm willing to put up with Digital Rights Management in video and music because I figure I'm only interested in hanging onto that content for a couple of years at most; but I've had my favorite books for nearly 40 years, and I hope to hang onto them for at least 40 more. Will I be able to say the same for e-books?

Other questions: How will payment-processing be handled? How will Google generate revenue off this? How will Google split revenue with publishers? Will authors and small publishers be able to self-publish books on Google Editions?

Finally, and this is huge: Will Google screen content, as Apple does, or will Google treat its customers like grownups who can decide for themselves what ideas they and their children should be exposed to?

PCWorld's Ian Paul has five more questions about Google's e-books.

Mitch Wagner is a freelance technology journalist and social media marketing consultant. Follow him on Twitter: @MitchWagner.