Google Expands Horizons With Books

Having outgrown the Internet, Google Inc. is tapping the printed page.

The search engine goliath has invited publishers to mail their books to its headquarters in Mountain View, Calif., where Google scans them in their entirety and uploads the pages to its searchable index.

In return, the company gains millions more pages upon which to plaster ads.

Google users began receiving links to scanned book pages to answer some of their queries on Wednesday.

The Google Print service mirrors a year-old offering from Amazon.com Inc. called Search Inside the Book. That feature is ad-free but designed to spur more book sales.

Many publishers are wary about letting books loose on the Internet.

Some fear that if pages from their books are included in answers to search queries, users will be discouraged from buying the actual books.

Google is hoping to prevent that by letting publishers limit the number of pages searchers will be able to view to as few as 20%, said Susan Wojcicki, Google’s director of product management. And the company doesn’t allow users to copy or print book pages.

Those restrictions persuaded publisher McGraw-Hill Cos. to upload some of its titles for the new service. “We see it as a great opportunity to expand the exposure of our books,” said spokeswoman April Hattori.

Google executives wouldn’t disclose how many publishers or book titles had been incorporated into the searchable index, but Penguin Group Inc., Perseus Books Group and Houghton Mifflin Co. have also uploaded some titles.

Google is “going to extend the realm of search,” said Safa Rashtchy, an Internet analyst with Piper Jaffray.

Highlighting the importance that Google is placing on the new service, founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin will attend the prominent Frankfurt Book Fair in Germany today to discuss the service.

If Google and Amazon are successful, Web surfers may find billions of book pages just a few keystrokes away.

The two companies have very different approaches to turning their book services into viable businesses.

As the biggest online retailer, Amazon seeks to sell more books. The Seattle company has said that making it easier to search through its book offerings has boosted sales, though it declined to say by how much.

Google, on the other hand, makes its money from online ads -- fully 98% of its $1.5 billion in revenue last year came from such advertising. So the company is continually looking for new digital real estate. (The company is testing free e-mail and photo-sharing services for the same reason.)

Search results from books, which will appear above normal search results, will include links to several Web stores. But Google won’t take a cut of their sales.

Instead, the search company will place targeted ads below images of book pages. When users click on those ads, Google will collect payments from advertisers and share some of the money with book publishers.

Google shares fell $1.29 on Wednesday to close at $137.08 on Nasdaq.