There is more competition coming the way of the Amazon Kindle, with Google recently revealing its intentions to come up with its online bookstore for electronic books - Google Editions - early next year!

In a Wednesday statement pertaining to the Google's plans of launching Google Editions, which is disconnected from Google Book Search, the company said that to begin with it will offer nearly 50,000 e-books, partnering with publishers with whom it has existing ties, provided they have digital rights for the titles.

Going by the information forwarded by Tom Turvey, director of strategic partnerships at Google, the partnering publishers will essentially make physical books searchable and available for sale, for which Google will give them 63 percent of revenues, retaining 37 percent for itself for its direct sale of the e-books to consumers.

Though Google currently has no plans to make an e-reader itself, it will merely host the e-books and make them searchable via its Google Editions - thereby extending its characteristic browser-centric, web-based approach to the issue of e-books.

The Google online e-book store will enable readers to purchase e-books either directly from the company or from other online stores like Amazon. com or Barnesandnoble. com.

However, Google spokeswoman Jennie Johnson said that the company has still to formally determine which online retailers would participate and whether the digital books would be viewable on e-readers like the Kindle.