The Bookseller reports that Google is about to launch an e-book store in France, as part of its Google Play entertainment portal. The search giant has emailed publisher partners of its Google Livres books search with an offer of a contract amendment that would give Google 48% of the price of e-books sold directly to consumers, as well as an unspecified share of a 52% margin on sales through retailers.
48%, huh? That’s quite a bit more than Apple and Amazon have asked for. I wonder if anyone will kick up a fuss about that. Regardless, this is Google Books’ first foray into a non-English-speaking country, though the company has already been scanning e-books for a number of French publishers.
