Fair enough. The book market pretty much belongs to Amazon and Barnes and Noble. But there are always niche markets out there for those who take the time to look for them. Don’t believe me? Just check this one out…

A small, until recently unknown Internet startup company far from Silicon Valley is making inroads against the well-funded giants of the industry by focusing on a vertical slice of the search market: comparison shopping for books. Its success so far illustrates an Internet business model that is catching on.

With neither venture-capital funding nor other investors, Israel-based Fetchbook has carved out a niche for itself by developing a book search and price comparison engine.

“We believe we are in the right time at the right place,” says Aviv Eliezer, Fetchbook’s co-chief executive officer and co-founder. “Today, if you look for a new or used book over the Internet, most search engines return too many results per query. So you prefer to go to one or two known sites such as Amazon.com (Profile, Products, Articles) Inc. or Barnes & Noble. But you don’t get the best price,” Eliezer said.

On the Fetchbook site, one click allows users to compare hundreds of bookstores and choose the lowest available price. Given the price gap between online stores, the customer can obtain as much as 80 percent discount off the list price, Eliezer said. [Read the rest]