HOW TO: Access the Google eBookstore Internationally (sadly, there’s a catch)

For those of you not residing in the United States, you may remember yesterday kicking the cat while bloggers around the world were flipping (or not) over the Google eBookstore. Or the dog. Or burning an effigy of Sergey Brin (more pet-friendly). Yes, as usual, Google have launched something the world wants to use, excluding 95% of the world by restricting it to the US for now. Yesterday they said that the Google eBookstore would launch internationally early next year (2011), but what’s early? Services talk and promises walk, right?

For some of us, it’s found here.

So much for my idealistic dreams of a new brand of web-only copyright, that would be pioneered by Google and be as international as the web. I don’t need to rehash the fact that trying to impose geographical restrictions on intangible products on the web is stupid. These are facts that have become self-evident – I’m paraphrasing my peeps in the US, of course.

I don’t like to wait, so I say to hell with it and try to beat the geo-restrictions which, for readers in Australia buying ebooks for personal use, are not legal. Check your local laws – you may be the same.

To easily avoid Amazon’s geo-restrictions, try this. Most readers who live in my local area, Brisbane, Australia, live in the US.

Google, though, is a bit harder. They won’t just take your word on your location – they check your IP address (for the less tech-savvy, a list of numbers that tells other computers on the web where your is), and they don’t accept PayPal. You can still use it for out-of-copyright books, but you can get them anywhere.

Use the Google eBookstore from outside the US

If you want in now, here’s what to do. It’s not an ideal solution, but it works well enough to browse and get a feel for the site, and download ebook previews. It will also be handy for Americans travelling overseas who forget to download their Google ebooks before leaving the US of A.

Meanwhile, I’m reading the first few chapters of Dennis Lehane’s Moonlight Mile. I’m a big fan, but I digress.

1. You have to change your IP address to appear to be in the US.

Using a VPN service is an easy way to do this. Before you throw your hands up in the air, it’s a lot easier than you think. A “Virtual Private Network” just opens a more permanent link between your computer and another (in this case, you can choose the US) and routes your traffic through that.

There are lots of services that will do this – many for free. I used a good one called ivacy.com (as in pr.ivacy.com – geddit?) and there’s another good one called www.vpnvip.com. It was pretty easy and worked on the iPad, which has VPN ability built it. You’ll have to sign up for a free account. But the rest is easy. Google VPN – there are tons of these things, any plenty with Firefox extensions or apps to make things easier.

2. Sign in with your Google account, browse and download previews.

3. THE CATCH: You can’t buy without a credit card, and it has to be a US credit card.

This bit, I couldn’t get around. After September 11, the US became ultra-strict on foreigners having US bank accounts and credit cards – i.e. you can’t. If you’ve found a way, let me know!

So – you may think this is a lot of messing around for incomplete access, and I’d fully agree with you. But it’s a relatively easy way to check out Google’s offering and see if you think you’ll use it when it launches in your country. Possibly next year – let me just try to read the smoldering ashes of my Sergey Brin effigy, tealeaf-style…