As some of you are aware, Google eBooks (aka Google Editions) debuted early last week and I wanted to learn more about it from a business standpoint as well as from a development standpoint.

The main core offering of Google eBooks is to allow a reader to be able to read and purchase digital books from several different platforms such as a mobile device (iPhone, Android), a computer, and a multimedia device (iPad, Nook, Tablet PCs) without worrying about being locked down to one platform (Kindle). What’s great about this versatility is that you can utilize your access to different technology devices throughout the day without carrying around any specific device with you all day.

For example, on your way to work while sitting on the train you can read your book on your Android mobile phone.  During lunch at your office desk, you can continue to read the same book on your work computer.  Then right before going to bed, you can turn on your iPad and read the book before falling asleep.  The best part of Google eBooks is that it keeps track of which page you left off from one device to another so you don’t have to thumb through to where you left off.

Given that the same e-book is selling for basically the same price and the number of titles available for purchase are the same; the flexibility to use multiple platforms is a serious contender against Amazon’s majority hold of the e-book market.  We’ll have to see if Google eBooks gains market share from Amazon.  I see this “battle” similar to the Microsoft vs. Apple “battle.”  On one side you have Amazon, where they offer a proprietary e-book format that works only on their proprietary e-reader hardware in which they have total control of.  Apple in a similar fashion provides both hardware and software build specifically to their machines both of which are very proprietary.   Google eBooks, similar to Microsoft focuses mainly on the software aspect, making them open to work on multiple hardware platforms build by other vendors.

As a developer I’m interested in being able to do “cool things” with other people’s software and integrate their “cool things” into “stuff” I’m working on.  In other words, I’m interested in finding out how I can utilized other people’s functionality, data, or whatever technologies or information they want to share and integrate them into websites/projects that I’m currently working on.  This benefits both parties because on one hand, the project I am working on becomes more functional and feature-rich and the sharer gets his/her technology exposure.  All this is possible through the use of APIs  (application programming interface) that the sharer creates.  Below are some of the APIs that Google offers via their Google Books programs to be use freely.

Some background knowledge: A book shows up under the Google Books program if the publisher submits data about the book to Google.  If the publisher also indicates that Google can sell the book, the book will also shows up under Google eBooks.  So because of this, all APIs listed for Google Books should also work with Google eBooks since they both share the same meta-data and the same submitted content format (either ePub or PDF).

But are there specific APIs released specifically for Google eBooks?  Not yet according to our account representative at Google.

Thanks for your email and interest in a Google eBooks API. While this is something we hope to offer in the future, it is not available at this time. As this is still a young program, new features are under consideration and your feedback is very helpful.

So for now, we’ll focus on Google Books APIs.

API #1: Search across all your books submitted to Google Books
Google gives you APIs that allows you to put a little search box on your website that allows your visitors to search Google’s database for all the books you have submitted to show up on Google books.  When a user uses the search, it brings them to a Google Books results page.  This is a neat feature but as a publisher or a business entity, having Google’s advertising on the right side of the page is very undesirable.   Also, at this time, there’s no way to search only Google eBooks (books flag under Google Books that are deemed ok to sell on Google).

API #2: Limiting the scope of a search to a single book

I guess the idea behind this is that you give the book more exposure (and a higher chance of it being purchased) if you can allow people to search some of the content of a book.  For example, if people were searching for a particular place in time and came across your book with certain pages highlighted with their search keywords, that person may be quite interested in purchasing the book.  This is great feature to show on Google’s results page, but I don’t think this makes that much sense on your corporate/personal website or blog.

With both APIs above, there are 2 types of search box design you can choose from.  One is a portrait style while the other is landscape.  You have the ability to change the background color, and that’s basically about it.  Anything else could violate the terms of agreement here.

API #3: Co-branding a Google Book/Google eBooks detail page
Ok this isn’t really an API in a traditional sense, but you can login into your Google Book accounts and change the look-and-feel of a Google Book/eBooks detail page.  The limitation is that it’s just the top banner.  You can only change the background color and upload your company’s logo, and that’s about it.  To do this, go to the “Product Setup.”  Below is the difference between a no-branded Google page vs. a co-branded Google page.  To be eligible, you need to have at least 75% of your books in print in the Google Books program.  If you’re eligible, you might as well do it since it’s FREE advertising.

API #4: Preview a snippet of the book you’ve submitted to Google
Since you’ve gone through all the work to submit a copy of your book to Google wouldn’t it be nice if you can enjoy some of the fruits of your labor and let potential customers be able to sample some pages in your book?  You can with this API!  You can use APIs found here to embed a window that shows sample portions of your book.  It’s not exactly the same as offering a 1^st Chapter PDF download on your site, but if you don’t have the resources to upload all your books to Google and a 1^st Chapter PDF to your own site, using this API allows you to cut out the latter.  You can customize many aspects of how the preview looks.  For example, the window can be of any size you wish to specify as well as how it is triggered.  It can be placed statically on the page, as a pop-up, or as a modal overlay.  Using this nifty tool gives you the code to create this functionality making everything so much easier.

Normal Direct Linking:  http://code.google.com/apis/books/examples/previewwizard-linktocobrand.html

Modal Embed: http://code.google.com/apis/books/examples/previewwizard-popup.html

Regular Embed: http://code.google.com/apis/books/examples/previewwizard-embed.html

Example of static embed right into a website.

API #5: Selling online using Google Checkout
This video says it all so I’m not going to say much here.

Create A Store With Google Checkout Store Gadget

Now the question is, if you wanted to sell Google eBooks straight from your website, is there an easier way to do so other than manually uploading a spreadsheet of meta-data of the books you want to sell?  Can Google Checkout sync up to Google eBooks to find out which books are already indicated for sale as well as the meta-data that comes with the book?  I’m not sure yet, and but I posted my questions on the Google boards, so once I find out, I’ll update this post.