Rediscovered Books joins Google e-book effort | Reading and Books | Idaho Statesman
BOISE — Google Inc. is penning the next chapter in the story of electronic books. At least one Treasure Valley bookstore already has joined the effort.
Rediscovered Books is now selling “Google eBooks” online at www.rdbooks.org. Google launched its e-book program Monday.
“One of the goals of Rediscovered Books is to offer our customers a choice of where to shop and what to buy,” said Laura DeLaney, one of the owners of Rediscovered Books. “Google eBooks now allows us to offer this choice in a digital format."
The Google platform contains 3 million volumes, most of which are free public domain works. But hundreds of thousands will be paid titles. Google is pitting itself squarely against established digital booksellers, including the market leader Amazon.com. Google will sell the books directly, through its eBookStore, and through online bookstores, which will split their proceeds with Google.
The books can be read online through a new Google reading interface that also launched Monday. They’ll also work on a number of tablet and e-reader devices, including Apple’s iPad and iPhone, Android-based smart phones and tablets, and e-ink devices from Sony and Barnes & Noble. Amazon Kindle users will not be able to purchase new books from Google, though the Kindle will be able to display some of Google’s public domain (non-copyrighted) books.
Google has scanned 15 million books as part of the large-scale book digitization project it started in 2004. Many of those books, however, are still under copyright and subject to a lawsuit awaiting resolution in a New York federal court. Until that lawsuit is settled, most of those books will remain out of the Google bookstore.
Los Angeles Times and Statesman staff
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