Third Place Books signs on with Google e-Books

in Lake Forest Park has signed on with Google to give its customers access to more than three million e-Books in the Silicon Valley giant's online store.

Google's new e-Book store which launched Dec. 6 is allowing Third Place Books and other independent stores to sell its inventory on their own Web sites.

The eBooks from Google's store are compatible with every electronic reader on the market except Amazon's Kindle. 

Robert Sindelar, managing partner of Third Place, said his store's core business is still overwhelmingly hardback and paperback books but the Google partnership gives customers who use e-Readers an option to buy from Third Place.

"We wanted to continue to be a resource for them instead of sending them to a competitor," Sindelar said.

Third Place has only sold a few Google e-books so far but it plans to start promoting the service in the next few weeks. 

Forrester Research predicts that U.S. e-book sales will rise to $2.8 billion in 2015 from $1 billion this year, according to an Associated Press story. The number of e-readers and tablets, such as the iPad, are expected to jump to 60 million in 2015 from 15 million this year. 

Sindelar declined to say what Third Place's cut of the profits from sales of Google's e-books is, citing confidentiality regarding the contract with Google.

While the number of independent brick-and-morter online bookstores has been declining in recent years, Sindelar said, "it's been a decent year," for Third Place in 2010.

"I 'll know better in a few weeks," he said. 

Find the Third Place Google eBook page here or go to Google eBooks, here.