Japan Today is reporting that Google’s upcoming Editions digital bookstore25,000 authors and publishers. This brings Google’s sum total to over 4 million books, including out of print works.
The 25,000 number is likely to include a number of smaller, lesser-published authors. From the start, Google has catered the service to be a welcoming place for smaller, independent publishers and authors.
If books with expired copyright are included, Google will handle over 4 million books, including about 2 million handled by the publishers that have agreed to join what is set to be the world’s largest virtual bookstore.
According to Google, the service will sell “online access to million of books. This means you can read an entire book from any Internet-connected computer, simply by logging in to your Book Search account, and it will remain on your electronic bookshelf, so you can come back and access it whenever you want in the future.”
