A new e-bookseller is coming to town and that bookseller is Google. Google has been as aggressive on the book front as Amazon, hoping to scan and bring books to the masses over the internet. In fact, the search giant already has many public domain books on its books site and many more copyrighted books available for preview, showing up to 20% of the book’s contents to viewers before they make the decision to buy.

And now that decision to buy is getting easier. The search giant is letting publishers set their own price and offer books for sale if they choose, which will give Amazon and its business some competition. Amazon, which has been the leading e-book retailer through its Kindle hardware would now have to compete against the ubiquity of Google’s service, which will be available on many web browsers and cellular phones. Amazon has stated that it intends to bring its Kindle books to cell phones, but thus far only the iPhone is supported outside of the firm’s Kindle.

Google’s books may offer an attractive destination for publishers as well. The Kindle sets the limit for best sellers at just under $10 and many other books for less than that. With flexible pricing, publishers may be more apt to adopt Google’s strategy. We still don’t know if printing will be allowed and what DRM will be built into Google’s offerings.

It looks like the digital book fight is on! For now, check out Google’s public domain mobile offerings at books.google.com/m.

(via: Wired)