At the Frankfurt Book Fair, Google announced plans to launch an eBook store. The store will be called Google Editions and will launch in the first half of 2010.
About 500,000 books will be available at launch. They will also be available for download on Amazon and Barnes & Noble. Google emphasized that it does not have plans to make an e-reader device.
Google will pay publishers of the e-books 63% and keep the remaining 37% when purchases are made through Google Edition. When purchased through another retailer, Google will get a very tiny share, with 45% going to the publisher and 55% going to the retailer.