British online book retailer The Book Depository is coming to America, according to a report on The Bookseller and, as George Murray of Bookninja fames puts it, it’s got Amazon.com “hearing that submarine ping sound.” That’s because the site has grown rapidly in popularity since its founding in 2004, due to some aggressive discounting and an amazing policy of sending books to almost any location in the world (currently the list is at 90 countries) for free.

The Bookseller report quotes the company’s managing director, Kieron Smith as saying that while “current pricing for international customers was based on UK market data,” the move to America is planned as part of an effort to “be more competitive against US booksellers” — seeming to mean American booksellers in the British market, i.e., Amazon.

And it seems likely American publishers will welcome the effort, much as British publishers have done. Part of that reason is that, well, there is the obvious — Amazon could use some competition. But also, Book Depository has worked to enlist publisher participation in its stocking and discounting efforts. Thust, discounts at the site, for example, are aggressive, but not nearly so drastic as at Amazon, which have become more and more of a worrisome sign, as has been the topic of a recent story or two.