Google Nearly Ready to Launch Editions, Its Ebook Retailing Platform

If the Wall Street Journal prints it, it must be true. The WSJ says that Google is preparing to launch Google Editions this month.

Here are the most salient points for book publishers and webby consumers, in my opinion:

• "Google Editions is set to debut in the U.S. by the end of the year and internationally in the first quarter of next year."
• Editions users will "be able to access their Google accounts on most devices with a Web browser, including personal computers, smartphones and tablets." Google's open approach is welcome. Now you won't have to be tied to Apple or Amazon stores or gadgets to be able to read an enormous number of ebooks. In fact, the lack of a Google ebook reader really opens up the market to any device that has an internet connection. The web isn't dead, Mr. Anderson.
• "Digital book sales are expected to more than triple to $966 million this year, according to Forrester Research, from $301 million in 2009." 
• "Google is going to turn every Internet space that talks about a book into a place where you can buy that book," says Dominique Raccah, publisher and owner of Sourcebooks Inc. (Dominique was a keynote speaker at this year's PubWest conference.)
• "Some independent booksellers that can't afford to open their own e-bookstores believe that Google Editions could be their gateway into the digital marketplace."
• Google has scanned 10% of the world's 150 million scannable books.
• "Spurred on by the launch of Apple Inc.'s iPad last April, more than 15 million e-readers and tablets will be sold by the end of 2010 in the U.S., compared with an estimated 2.8 million e-readers sold in 2009, Forrester predicts."

UPDATE 12/6: Annnd it's open! Check out Google's new ebook store. Here's the NYTimes.com analysis.