booktwo.org

I’ve written about Google Book Search before, but it’s time to do so again - particularly after their PR barrage at the London Book Fair, some aspects of which I wrote up at the time.

For a while now, I’ve been broadly in favour of GBS, at least in as much as it’s forcing publishers to look seriously at digitisation strategies and becoming the driving force for change within the industry. Google’s PR drive has also stepped up a notch, with their flacks becoming increasingly informed about the book trade, a number of high-profile panels at book events, and a rapidly growing number of publishers coming on board. At the LBF, they convinced a fair number more.

So now, as is my wont, I’m the one getting nervous. This isn’t contrariness. I want digitisation to succeed, but I’ve got some worries about GBS, based on two main observations: Google Book Search isn’t the same as Google Web Search, and Google, if not actually, intentionally lying, is certainly wilfully misleading publishers about its intentions.

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A quick note. As I mentioned vaguely before, I’ll be attending all three days of the London Book Fair next week. I’ll be working, but if there’s anyone who’d like to meet up for a drink at the end of the day, please get in touch.

I’ll obviously be reporting on any booktwo-related events, on the general techness of this year’s Fair, and of the state of the industry as a whole, so stay tuned.