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Google opens ebook store in the UK

By Stewart Mitchell

Posted on 7 Oct 2011 at 08:56

Google has opened its ebook store in the UK having signed deals with major UK publishers.

According to the company, which is keen to gain a presence in an ebook market dominated by Amazon, it has signed deals with Hachette, Random House, Penguin and other publishers, and claims the service will offer hundreds of thousands of titles for sale. The company said it would also offer more than two million free, public domain books.

“We’ve been working with publishers for some time to build new online revenue sources for writers and publishers, and this is the next step in that direction,” said Jason Hanley, strategic partner development manager.

“With Google eBooks, readers can access their books across a variety of devices; publishers have an open platform for selling their works; and booksellers have an easy-to-implement way to sell digital books in addition to their existing offering.”

Google said readers could buy books from the Google eBookstore, purchase them from one of its bookseller partners or from the Android Market, with ebooks stored in an online library and accessible across devices from laptops and tablets to smartphones and ebook readers. Google Books apps are now available for the iPhone and iPad, as well as Android devices.

However, Kindle owners will miss out on Google's offering, with the Amazon device not supported.

“Currently, Google eBooks are not compatible with Amazon Kindle devices, though we are open to supporting them in the future,” the company states on the store Help section, although it does support the ebook platform used by Sony.

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User comments

Short-sighted

They are open to supporting the most common e-reader in the future! Are they waiting to see if it will catch on?

By The_Scrote on 7 Oct 2011

ructions behind the scenes...

...I bet. Amazon demanding a share of the reevnue Google is not prepared to cough up. That's why they might support Kindle in future - if Amazon will play nice. That's my guess.

By Noghar on 7 Oct 2011

Overpriced (yet again)

£4.99 for a PDF document that can re-sell a billion times for next to nothing, Vs £4.19 for the paperback in my local ASDA.
When are they going to realise people are not stupid? eBooks are worth (and cost) considerably less than real books and need to be priced accordingly.
Print, store, distribute, sell Vs copy-n-paste. It's not rocket science to work out we're being ripped off.

By cheysuli on 7 Oct 2011

It's not very good.

The search option needs some work. Was looking for books by Wendy Cope but it didn't return anything by her. I guess they might not have her books but it should say no matches rather than trying to flog me other stuff I am not interested in.

Tried looking at the prices of other ebooks I already have. At least the same price as Waterstones and W.H. Smith. Other than 'It's Google!' I don't see any compelling reason to shop there.

By JamesD29 on 7 Oct 2011

@cheylusi

Don't forget there is 20% VAT on e-books and not on real books. No excuse though.

By james016 on 7 Oct 2011

Pricing

@cheylusi is right.

Can't understand eBooks being priced similarly and often higher than print copies of the same editions given their limitations.

Okay, eBooks have advantages too - searchable, much easier to annotate. But I have ZERO confidence that an eBook I buy today will be readable by me in 40 years time. I have no sense of owning what I buy.

Given that, I will need a significantly lower price than print before I buy an eReader at all.

So far have the Kindle software on my Android phone. It's fantastic - but total spend on eBooks thus far, 69p. And that will remain the case until the above issues are resolved.

By Cantabrian on 7 Oct 2011

@cheysuli

Wish you were right. Mencken said "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public.". Strike the word American and it is still true.

By thefarhad on 7 Oct 2011

Well since Kindle is not open to GOOGLE formats why should they do the contrary? I have been waiting for this for soo long...will get myself a new "google" compatible reader asap and for sure not a kindle considering that the new model has severe 3G limitations...

By aralerm on 7 Oct 2011

ebook pricing

They ARE experimenting with pricing - many ebooks now sell for only 99p, including some latest books from mainstream authors like Michael Connolly. If these sell a ton, then we can all hope that something will sink in...

By tsult81 on 7 Oct 2011

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