Google Books officially hit Canada last month and finally allows us to purchase best sellers and millions of free books. This really makes e-readers like the iRiver Story HD relevant because it used to be USA only and now can be used as a viable alternative to many of the other stores out there. The one drawback of the Canadian version of the store is the lack of selection. The American version of Google Books has millions of paid offerings while the Canadian version only has a few thousand. This is set to dramatically increase now that the Canadian Booksellers Association and the consortium known as Campus eBookstore has opened the door for independent CBA members to publish on the Google platform.
Publishers weekly had this to say on the matter – “The CBA said that Queen’s University’s bookstore and McNally Robinson tested the Google’s e-book solution for the past 18 months, going live in November. Since then, the CBA has worked with Chris Tabor, president of Campus eBookstore and director of Queen’s University Bookstore, to tailor a platform that meets the needs of independent booksellers. Anthony Van Alphen of Reads Books in Carleton Place, Ont., a member of the CBA tech committee, was the first to test it out from a small indie store perspective.”
“We have wanted a solution like this for a long time” said CBA president Mark Lefebvre. CBA members will connect with Google eBbooks via Campus eBookstore. And initially, CBA booksellers don’t have to pay anything to get the service up and running, he said. “They simply need to sign up, add the html code to their site…. The solution doesn’t require them to have native ecommerce capability – the money is taken on their behalf and they get their cut.”
Michael Kozlowski is the editor-in-chief at Good e-Reader and has written about audiobooks and e-readers for the past fifteen years. Newspapers and websites such as the CBC, CNET, Engadget, Huffington Post and the New York Times have picked up his articles. He Lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.
