According to the New York Times, ” Google signaled its intent to introduce a program by that would enable publishers to sell digital versions of their newest books direct to consumers…. through Google”.

This was the big news at this years BookExpo convention in New York and seems to have been warmly received by publishers who have been concerned by Amazons pricing and revenue share policies. Google have said that they will leave pricing to the publishers in as much as the publishers will be able to set a list price for a publication, however Google will set the price paid by consumers through the e-Book program.

Now to be fair, we’ve heard this stuff before from Google however Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships at Google, used the phrase: “This time we mean it.”

More importantly, this is apparently going to be a device agnostic initiative as Google’s program would allow consumers to read books on any device with Internet access, including mobile phones, rather than being limited to dedicated reading devices like the Amazon Kindle. “We don’t believe that having a silo or a proprietary system is the way that e-books will go,” continued Mr Turvey.

This could get intertesting – watch this space