Uh Oh, Amazon: Google's In The E-Book Business

Google has confirmed it will later this year launch a partner program for authors to sell digital versions of their books online -- a move that will put Google in direct competition with Amazon, Amazon's Kindle device, and anyone else with a stake in the exploding market for e-books and e-reading.

Google issued a statement Monday after The New York Times first reported its potential e-book plans Sunday. According to the statement, Google is at work on a "digital book ecosystem" that would allow authors to partner with Google and release and promote their works on a variety of platforms, including any device with Internet access.

"Eventually, we hope to extend this functionality to retailers who embed Google Previews on their Web site," Google said in the statement.

Amazon's dominance in the e-reading market took off following the February release of Kindle 2, the second version of its dedicated e-reading device, and last month's unveiling of Kindle DX, a larger-screen version of the e-reader.

Competitors have since been coming out of the woodwork to challenge Kindle's dominance, but none, really -- whether device or e-reading application -- has the weight Google has to throw around. And Google isn't exactly a stranger to e-reading, either; the company's ongoing project to digitize public domain books has drawn the ire of the Authors Guild, and also made it a partner of Sony, which in March said it would make all of Google's public domain e-books available through its Sony eReader.

Google's plan at first glance, however, seems author-friendly and allows for much variety in how readers access the books -- two attributes Amazon doesn't really share. If you download books from Amazon's Kindle store, for example, the number of devices on which they can be read is limited to dedicated Kindles and Apple iPhones and iPods running Kindle applications.

"We don't believe that having a silo or proprietary system is the way that e-books will go," said Tom Turvey, Google's Strategic Director of Partnerships, at BookExpo over the weekend, according to The New York Times.

Amazon has also been widely criticized for keeping too much revenue from e-books for itself and cutting authors and digital book publishers out of any substantial returns. The online document sharing site Scribd, which recently said it would begin allowing authors a way to charge for their content, is among other e-reading entities seeming to directly target Amazon based on that criticism. Google told the Times over the weekend that it will allow publishers to set consumer prices for e-books sold through Google's service.

That Amazon has competition isn't exactly a surprise, but a Google e-book salvo is in a whole other league than, say, new e-reading devices from UK startup Interead.com or Plastic Logic, both of whom showed off their would-be Kindle Killers last week.

"Competitors will attack Amazon's market position by launching new features, expanding content beyond books, dominating markets outside the U.S., reducing costs, and improving relationships with publishers," wrote Forrester media and technology analyst Sarah Rotman Epps in a Monday research note. "With retailers, mobile operators, and device manufacturers all vying for a piece of the e-reader action, publishers should proactively shape their own e-reader opportunity -- or miss their last best chance to control their own destiny."