What does this mean? Perhaps Google will feel compelled to move seriously into the book search business while it is still the overwhelmingly dominant search engine. You snooze, you lose. And, if Google passes on books, there’s no guarantee that Yahoo and MSN will pass too. It’s hard to imagine that not even one of these giants will attempt to use its searching power to become the leader in used book searching.

How might a Google (or Yahoo or MSN) book search work? Google already has the capacity to target searches to specific websites only. It would not be difficult for them to give booksellers a format as to how to offer books on their own websites. Rather than posting their books to a bookselling site, the dealer simply posts them on his own website, using a format designed for Google searches. The dealer incurs no listing fee. If they are too small to have their own website, either Google or an outside service could rent space on a server to that dealer for a fairly nominal cost. Once the dealer signs on with Google, Google adds his or her site to those searched for used books. Anytime a consumer goes to Google’s book search to locate a title, Google searches the sites of all dealers who have signed up for their service and posts the results as it now does for web searches.

How does Google get paid? Here’s a real advantage they have. While Abe looks to collect a commission on sales, which leads to the problem of buyers buying the books they find offline, Google can simply charge the way they now charge other advertisers. Google charges advertisers on a per click basis. In other words, every time someone clicks on one of their ads, Google collects a small fee, frequently just a few pennies. They could do the same with their book search service. Click on the listing Google finds and Google gets a couple of cents. It doesn’t matter whether the customer buys the book online or offline, or even at all. Each click brings Google a couple of pennies. While not every click results in a sale, the cost per click is sufficiently low that this may be a cheaper cost per ultimate sale for dealers than that of current commissions systems. And, since Google never has to deal with customers, complaints, charges, or anything else themselves, since all they are is a search engine, costs are minimal to them. They are in a strong position to undercut competition. Whatever they make, it’s all plus business. If Google doesn’t like this idea, there are two other search engines waiting in the wings who might.

Now there’s one more colossus out there we haven’t even mentioned: eBay. eBay isn’t a typical bookselling site. It’s an online auction. Nonetheless, it has become one of the world’s largest booksellers. They are drawing off more and more sales that otherwise would go through traditional bookselling venues (if you can call internet bookselling “traditional”). eBay is an amazing success, perhaps the most successful internet company ever. They have achieved total domination of the online auction business. Abe has its Alibris, Amazon its Barnes and Noble. eBay has no one of comparable significance behind it. They can do as they please, and one of the things that pleases eBay is selling more old books.