Via NY Times, the latest play by play:
Could book publishers suddenly be in the position of telling Google what to do?
With the impending arrival of digital books on the Apple iPad and feverish negotiations with Amazon.com over e-book prices, publishers have managed to take some control — at least temporarily — of how much consumers pay for their content.
Now, as publishers enter discussions with the Web giant Google about its plan to sell digital versions of new books direct to consumers, they have a little more leverage than just a few weeks ago — at least when it comes to determining how Google will pay publishers for those e-books and how much consumers will pay for them.