Local bookstores hope Google ebooks will keep them in the game | Business

With the launch of Google ebooks Dec. 6, book lovers no longer have to choose between the convenience of reading Jane Austen on their iPad and dooming their favorite local independent bookstore to closure.

Five Seattle-area booksellers, through their partnership with the American Booksellers Association, are now able to sell Google ebooks on their websites. They are hoping this new opportunity can help turn the tide of corporate chains versus independent stores in the sale of digital books.

"Ebooks don't have to be the death knell of indpendent booksellers," said Lillian Welch, bookseller at Queen Anne Books. "It can just be a format change."

Welch likened it to a record shop switching from cassettes to CDs, and said Google ebooks now allows readers to purchase digital books through independent shops that did not have that capability before.

She said she would never have purchased an ebook prior to this week but has already read the start of "Pride and Prejudice" through Google ebooks.

Though she doesn't think Google ebooks will make a huge difference for Queen Anne Books, whose business is based on face-to-face book recommendations, Welch said the change should allow large independent book selling sites, such as Powell's Books, to compete with chains like Amazon.

But, not everyone is on the ebook bandwagon yet.

Henry Burton is the owner of Fremont Place Book Company, which was setting up its Google ebookstore Dec 7. He said despite the seeming popularity of ebooks, the digital book seller they have had for a year hasn't done much business.

"I'm losing customers to Kindle all the time," he said. "If I'm going to keep selling books, I'm going to have to find ways to sell them in different formats."

Getting in the ebook business is frustrating, but he has to do what he can to stay in business, Burton said.

Welch said Google ebooks will prove to be the downfall of Amazon's Kindle. While the Kindle operates solely as an ebook reader, Google ebooks turns any web-capable device into a digital reader, she said.

Technology that only does one thing, especially when it comes to the internet, has not fared well, and the Kindle is on its way to becoming the Betamax of digital readers, Welch said.

Despite their recognition of them as the wave of the future, neither Burton nor Welch are ready to completely embrace ebooks.

"They're nice," Welch said. "I would read them on vacation. But, I can't cuddle up in bed with my laptop."

The independent bookstores now offering Google ebooks are Fremont Place Book Company, Queen Anne Books, Third Place Books in Lake Forest Park and Ravena, Elliott Bay Book Company in Capitol Hill and Eagle Harbor Book Company on Bainbridge Island.