Will Google eBook Venture Level The Playing Field?

sfgate.com:

As president of the independent American Booksellers Association, Tucker has been working with Google on its Google Editions initiative for the past two years. Earlier reports estimated 400,000 Google e-books will be available at launch, all of them available via independent booksellers' websites.

Read the whole story: sfgate.com

Comments

[Beatitudes]

08:36 AM on 12/06/2010

hope yes, or no


Gran Met: intermedia­ry between the living and the dead. Priestess. I'd gone to St. Louis Cemetery No. 1 and watched as tourists with cameras hanging from their necks scratched three Xs on Marie Laveau’s crumbling tomb. Mold and soot attached to the stucco encasement no matter how often it was cleaned. Admirers and sycophants cluttered the area with tokens, most of them trinkets that symbolized appeals for a better life. I heard children laughing, a sonorous but faraway tinkling, like a bewitched wind chime. There are times when we scoff at what we perceive as the irrational­, brushing away stentorian alarms; and we pay dearly for that foolish act. I'd done that most of my life; hushing the voices that begged for validation­, closing my eyes to the pulsating shapes that followed me. I surveyed the gaggle of tourists on that now far away day; no children. Gran Met with two souls, one the gros bon ange which gives her the will to live and survive and connects her to the living and should she wish, if good works are done, she may return, I guess be reincarnat­ed, for a better life. Soul number two: Our personalit­y, the face we see in the mirror, our earthly essence: ti bon ange. I walked away shaking my head and thinking perhaps it was time I paid another visit to the department­’s psychiatri­st. Better a voodoo princess than the Madwoman of New Orleans.



The Beatitudes­, amazon.com­, Lyn LeJeune,

[Mike Strusz]

03:24 PM on 12/05/2010

I really wish you could buy a hard copy of a book, and also get digital rights to it for an e-reader - much like we can with buying a CD.

Only at that point, will I buy an e-reader.

[Gary137]

12:06 PM on 12/05/2010

"a Google Editions buyer's "online bookshelf" will remain in the "cloud" (i.e., Google's servers). But they will be readable on every e-book-enabled device, including PCs, tablets and smart phones - with the exception of the Kindle."

This leaves me out. I get all of the excellent service and selection from Amazon for my Kindle. It will leave new indie authors out too as far as selling on Amazon.