Amazon is trying to do to books what the iPod has done to music. They want to give you the ability to download any book online.

The service, which is set to start next year, will enable you pay a fee for online access to any book you buy a hard copy of. Additionally, the service will offer an interesting pay-per-page model. That’s right, you’ll be able to read any book without buying a hardcopy on a pay-per-view kind of model.

Amazon already has most of its books scanned thanks to its “Search Inside the Book” feature. This probably won’t be a hard transition for the number 1 retailer of books.

I’m glad to see the publishing world making the correct response in its losing battle to the Internet. I’m sure Apple’s Music Store has proven that it makes sense to embrace technology and not fight it. Glad to see history not repeating itself.