The biggest international news story this week is the launch of Google Print at the Frankfurt Book fair. According to the New York Times, this development could ‘touch off an important shift in the balance of power between companies that produce books and those that sell them’.

The service is still in the beta testing stage, but the Google Print web site contains this description:

Just do your usual searches on Google and whenever a book contains content that matches your search terms, we'll show that book in your search results. Click on the book title and you'll see the page of the book containing your search terms and other information about the book. Click on the "Buy this Book" link and you'll go straight to an online bookstore where you can purchase the book.

All book publishers – irrespective of size or location - will be able to get their book content included in the main Google search results:

Publishers send Google their books and Google scans them to add their content to our search results at no cost to the publisher.

Google Print says that the service will ‘Increase book sales at traditional and online booksellers’, but it seems likely that bricks-and-mortar bookshops will suffer.

At this stage, the online retailers featured on Google Print pages are Amazon.com, BN.com and Booksense. But Amazon in particular is likely to take a big hit. As the New York Times notes,

In recent years, publishing executives have been quietly trying to figure out whether they can get rid of the middlemen - bookstores - and sell their products directly to consumers …

When Google Print generates a search result … it lists the book's publisher alongside each book page. It would be relatively easy for publishers to insert themselves as one of the links that a Google Print user could use to buy the book …

… two publishing executives who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that Google Print was perhaps most intriguing because of the possibilities it presented for direct sales by publishers.

If there's ever been a good incentive for high street bookshops to get into the online business, this is it.

NB: The New York Times article is available here if you are registered with the web site.