Google online books

Image via CrunchBase

Watch out Amazon. Google is hitting the online bookstore business.

The search giant announced Thursday at the Frankfurt Book Fair that in the first half of next year it will launch Google Editions, a new service that will deliver e-books to anyone with a Web browser.

Partnering with publishers which whom it already has digital rights deals, Google plans to initially offer about a half-million books through the service, according to press reports from Frankfurt. Readers will be able to purchase the books directly from Google or from online bookstores such as Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

In September, in conjunction with Congressional hearings into its Google Books project, the search titan had revealed a reseller program that would give competitors a share of money from such a