How Many Books Upload to Google Books

Google is the world'south leading search engine, as you probably already know. A bottom-known function of Google is its very own online bookstore — Google Play Books — which is integrated within the broader Google Play store.

If you're 1 of the 2.5 billion people who own an Android device, you'll know what we're talking about. Google Play is the identify to download or purchase apps, games, music, movies, and, well, books to use on your Android devices.

And that'due south exactly why Google Play Books is such an important place for any writer to exist present: it allows you lot to easily reach those billions of people in the earth who ain Android devices.

A brief history of Google Play Books

That said, Google Play wasn't always a peachy identify for indie authors. Up until early 2020, you couldn't actually get your books into the Google Play Books shop without commencement going through an "approving period" and (sometimes) a waiting list.

More than that, the lucky authors who did manage to get into the store would often see their titles get automatically discounted by Google Play, without prior warning. This move would trigger price-matching from Amazon (and other retailers), frequently without the author realizing it in the start place.

Of class, many indie authors found workarounds to avoid any such discount. They used complicated formulas to figure out how that auto-discounting worked and priced their book college on Google Play to make upward for it. Overall, though, the clunkiness of the organization outweighed its benefits for virtually authors.

Enter 2020. The year will probably be remembered for other somber things, but it as well marks the moment that Google Play Books finally opened its doors, in a big way, to indie authors.

Now, it's easier than ever to create a new publisher business relationship. No approval periods anymore: you tin just create your account, set your book, and upload information technology to the store — with only a few piece of cake clicks.

Gone are the times of the widespread automobile-discounting too. Every bit of October 2020, Google Play Books will "unilaterally follow the list cost that y'all provide for an ebook on sales to customers in the U.s.a. and Canada," no matter the price of the ebook.

Note: Google Play obviously nevertheless reserves the correct to "price-match" your book if they see a lower price bachelor elsewhere, but like most other retailers.

All in all, this means that (unless you're exclusive to Amazon through KDP Select) there is no reason anymore not to have your books on Google Play. On the opposite, you take everything to proceeds: Google Play even offers amend royalties than Amazon (70% vs 35%), and charges no delivery fees, on books priced beneath $2.99 or to a higher place $9.99!

Then let's see exactly how yous can reach that!

How to publish your book on Google Play in 7 easy steps

As we mentioned, Google Play has removed their indeterminate "approval periods" and waiting lists for creating new publisher accounts. But here'south what you can likewise get excited nigh: they've as well redesigned their whole publishing arrangement, and made it easier than ever to publish on Google Play Books.

Every bit with any other publishing platform, it all starts with:

Step 1: Create your Google Play Partner business relationship

Google Play at present has a simple landing page for authors looking to publish their books on the platform: g.co/play/publish. Only click on "Get Started" and fill in your details to create your business relationship.

Note that you'll need an associated Google business relationship. If y'all use Gmail, you're gold. If not, you'll have to create a Google account.

Footstep 2: Enter your fiscal information

Simple: you lot'll want Google Play to be able to pay you your royalties. So the commencement matter you'll need to do is enter your payment and tax information, and link your banking concern account.

Note: it can take up to 12 days for Google to review and activate your account. To avoid disappointment, exist sure to fix your book at least ii weeks in advance.

Step iii: Create your showtime book

Side by side, click on "Add your outset book" in the dashboard. The decision that you'll face now is:

Whether yous desire to really publish your ebook and arrive available for sale on Google Play, or
Whether you but want to offer a preview of information technology on Google Books.

It's worth noting this distinction because Google Books is often dislocated with Google Play — and they are actually pretty different. Google Play is, as we mentioned, an online store, while Google Books is not. Instead, it's one of the globe'due south biggest online index of full-text books, every bit Google has digitized millions of impress and electronic books to make them "searchable" and indexable on search engines. More about that initiative here.

If yous publish on Google Play, your volume will automatically get a page with a preview on Google Books, so y'all should only select "Offer a preview on Google Books just" if you practise not want to publish and sell your book on the Google Play store. (For example, if y'all're in KDP Select but nevertheless want your book to be indexed in the Google Books library, picking that selection wouldn't break KDP Select's terms.)

Once y'all click on "Sell ebook on Google Play," you'll be prompted to select your book's "ID," i.e. ISBN number. If you lot have an ISBN, you tin can enter it. If y'all don't, only select the "Go a Google Book ID" option — it's free.

Stride 4: Fill in your books' metadata

The metadata process on Google Play Books is divided into four steps:

Almost the book
Genres
Contributors
Settings

Let's go through them in order.

Most the volume
If yous've already published your book elsewhere, then this part should exist pretty quick! You tin can merely paste in your title, subtitle, book description, series championship, etc.

If it'southward the get-go time that you're publishing the book and yous haven't written the description (or blurb) yet, and then make sure y'all read our post on how to write a book blurb. Equally y'all'll soon see, the search on the Google Play store works in a fashion that gives particular importance to titles, subtitles, and descriptions — so you might want to optimize those specifically for Google Play.

If you want your book to exist published immediately, exit the "On-sale date" field blank. If you lot're publishing a pre-gild, so make sure to fill it in with the date on which your book volition launch.

Ane last thing on the "About the book" page: Google gives you the opportunity to "add a related volume" at the bottom. This is a great gamble to link your book with other ones, even if they're non in the series (i.due east. an anthology, a box set, or another series in the same universe).

Genres
This is where Google Play is very different from other stores. First, it doesn't limit you in the number of genre categories you lot can select. Moreover, information technology lets you select whatever category from the BISAC (North America) or BIC (UK and Australia) systems:

So you should spend a good amount of fourth dimension to make certain you discover and select all the categories that are relevant to your volume. Categories play an important role in Google's search algorithms, so this will be time well-spent.

Contributors
The next folio is pretty straightforward: this is where you tin can put in your author name and writer bio. You tin also add in other contributors to your book, such equally editors, illustrators, translators, ghostwriters, etc.

Preview settings
Hither'southward another place where Google gives you more than control than its peers. Y'all can select how much of the book readers volition exist able to preview using Google Play'due south "Look Inside" feature (note, though, that 20% is the minimum):

You lot can likewise choose the amount of text that they can copy-paste (or set information technology to 0%), every bit well as opt in/out of DRM encryption.

If one of your goals is to optimize your book's presence on Google Books' search (the index we mentioned in step three), then brand certain to click on "Show advanced settings" and fill those fields in.

Step 5: Upload your book and cover files

This function should be pretty straightforward. You'll just need to accept your files on hand, specifically:

Your front end encompass image
Your EPUB or PDF
Your back cover image (optional)

To larn more than virtually Google Play'south expected file types and specs, read this back up commodity.

Now, a really cool thing about Google Play is that, in one case your files accept been processed and accustomed, y'all can add together in "Content Reviewers" only by inbound their email addresses. Doing this will basically grant early access to your volume for free, which makes this a great way to share ARC copies with beta readers or reviewers.

This is something y'all can do even later you've finished this setup, and while there are some requirements for Content Reviewers (eastward.grand. they must have a Google account), most people should meet them. You can acquire more almost this handy feature here.

Step half-dozen: Set your book'south cost

Google Play Books gives you the opportunity to gear up different prices for different regions — and in different currencies. To make certain your book is attractively priced in each currency, you lot should definitely take advantage of this feature.

For case, the below setup will price your book at £0.99 in the UK & Republic of ireland, at €0.99 in the Eurozone, and at $0.99 everywhere else.

Annotation that the "additional settings" allow you to make these prices temporary — which tin be handy if you want to offering promotional pricing at launch.

Step vii: Review and publish

Yous're almost in that location! The only thing left to practise is to make certain you've entered everything correctly, consume that fear and anticipation, and hit that magical "Publish" push.

This is too a good moment to go back to step 5 — your files should exist processed by at present — and add together in your "Content Reviewers" just before you publish.

Half-dozen tips to boost your Google Play sales

Of course, publishing the book is the easy scrap. Getting it to sell — now, that'south another story. Then we decided to accomplish out to the Google Play Books team itself, every bit well as two high-selling authors on the Google Play shop, to get some marketing tips directly from them.

Note that most of these tips are sectional to the Google Play platform, and so they don't constitute a proper, cross-retailer marketing plan.

Instead, our aim is to help you understand how the Google Play store and its algorithms work, so that you can leverage their specificities to heave your sales on that platform.

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one. Don't jump in and out of exclusivity

This is the very offset thing that both the Google Play Books team and the authors nosotros consulted told us (and this tip tin can actually be applied to pretty much any non-Amazon retailer). If y'all're constantly opting in and out of KDP Select — and taking your books in and out from wide retailers — you seriously impairment your chances of getting whatsoever sales on these wide retailers.

Note: if you don't know what we hateful past "exclusivity" and "wide," yous need to read this article on KDP Select.

But it goes fifty-fifty deeper in the example of Google Play. In the words of the Google Play Books team:

"Nearly all of Google Play Books' merchandising is driven by an algorithm. As a result, every reader sees a different personalized bookstore. If books are removed from the shop, it disrupts the algorithm's learning nigh those titles and eliminates the opportunity for those titles to be recommended. More time in the store and more than lifetime sales translates to higher discoverability."

2. Leverage metadata intelligently

If you're familiar with other publishing platforms, you'll probably have spotted the one thing that seems to be missing from Google Play's procedure: keywords.

At no point does Google Play ask you for meta keywords to describe your book. On the other mitt, Google Play lets you select as many categories as you want. So you need to leverage the categories to supervene upon the keywords you would use on other stores.

For case, let's say yous apply the keywords "vampire," "19th century," and "gaslamp" on Amazon. You can get your book to bear witness upwards for these keywords on Google Play by selecting the post-obit BISAC categories:

Young Adult Fiction / Vampires
Young Developed Fiction / Historical / U.s.a. / 19th Century
Fiction / Fantasy / Gaslamp

Of course, this isn't always going to be possible, as some niche keywords won't have an associated category. As an example, "weird west" (or "western fantasy") is a reasonably popular keyword that doesn't have a dedicated BISAC category.

In such cases, you have two options:

If you absolutely want your book to be among the very showtime to bear witness upwards for that keyword, attempt working it into your subtitle: e.g. "A Weird Due west Fantasy Chance"; or
If yous desire the book to show upward in the search, simply don't want to involve your subtitle, you can include information technology in the volume description.

If you practise work in keywords into your book clarification, make sure to do then in a natural way. In other words, don't keyword-dump! This might injure the conversion of your book page more information technology volition broaden its visibility.

3. Run a disbelieve promotion

This is naturally a tip that will work for whatsoever book on any store. But it tends to be fifty-fifty more effective on Google Play (a less crowded store than Amazon).

Showtime, Google makes it extra easy to schedule a toll promotion in accelerate via the "Promotions" department of the Partner Centre. If you lot take reward of that — instead of only manually lowering a book'due south list price in the metadata — it will trigger a strikethrough of your title'south list prices in the store.

More importantly, discounted books tend to get extra visibility on the Google Play store, as the shop homepage (customized to every reader based on their previous activity) tends to feature several sections specifically for discounted books. Hither'due south an example:

In the words of the Google Play squad:

"When a publisher discounts their book on Google Play Books, the book becomes eligible for additional in-shop merchandising and client notifications. This doesn't mean that every book volition receive every promotion, but this disbelieve significantly increases the volume's likelihood of receiving more than promotion in the storefront.

These discount promotions are driven by our algorithm and tin include:

Appearance in a collection highlighting discounted titles, including relevant genre collections

Targeted in-app notifications and emails to customers that have wishlisted or sampled that title"

4. Leverage Google Play promo codes

On elevation of running a discount promotion, yous tin can likewise use Google Play's "promo codes" feature to offering anexclusive special deal to some of your readers.

At that place are three types of promo codes you can generate for Google Play:

Free allows customers to redeem the volume at no price.
Percent off (ebooks merely) allows customers to receive a percentage disbelieve off the book's listing price.
Fixed price promotion allows customers to purchase the book for a lower fixed price.

Now, the free codes volition plain not brand you any coin if they're redeemed. But for the percentage off and fixed price promotion codes, the author will earn the usual 70% royalty on the final toll of the ebook (after disbelieve). Then if you run a fixed price promo code campaign where readers can take hold of the ebook at $0.50, y'all'd earn $0.35 past promo code redeem.

More importantly, promo lawmaking redeems on Google Play have a direct impact on rank algorithms. Equally confirmed to me by the Google Play squad via e-mail:

"Percent and stock-still price promo code redemptions are sales as the customer purchases the book. They are treated like any other volume sale in our store, which always impacts our algorithm. Free promo lawmaking redemptions are treated the same as free downloads in our shop. They accept a pocket-sized touch on on our algorithm."

This makes Google Play promo codes extremely attractive, and a groovy tool to boost your sales on the store.

5. Utilise a gratis series starter

Speaking of sections that tend to be prominently featured on homepages, here's one that y'all won't find on any other store:

Spoiler warning: it presents a huge opportunity for series authors. In the words of Charlotte Byrd, one of the authors we consulted for this post:

"The one matter that I recently did that I accept never done before was have iii of my showtime-in-serial gratis. I got a Bookbub, which I never got before, I decided to make 2 others series starters free forth with it during this difficult fourth dimension. I have seen my sales increase significantly every bit a result (not just equally a upshot of the Bookbub, even before that promotion went through). I take very strong read through and with having the first book complimentary, I am seeing a number of my books in the catalog announced on Google Play charts and stay there. That's another thing that I really like nigh Google Play: the books have a lot more than stickability on the charts than on other platforms."

Another bonus of using costless books as "loss leaders" for a series? Free downloads actually count towards the Google Play charts and algorithms — granting them a lot more visibility than on Amazon.

half dozen. Sign upwards for the Google Play affiliate program

Want to make an additional 7% committee on ebooks and audiobooks sold on Google Play? Just sign upwardly for the Google Play Books affiliate program. Information technology's costless to bring together and currently available for agile partners. If your Google Play Books partner account is eligible, you'll find a link to the chapter sign-up form on the homepage of your Partner Center.

This is not but a way to make a few extra bucks, it'south also great for advertising! If you lot run Facebook ads targeting Google Play readers (yes, that's possible), you lot tin can utilise chapter links to your books and know exactly how many sales your ads are generating.

If you follow all the steps in this post and take advantage of these Google Play-specific marketing tips, you should exist well on your manner to turning your Google Play sales into a solid income stream. The redesign of Google Play Books shows that Google is finally placing some real importance on book sales, which means that it might be ready to grow enough to be a real challenger to Amazon. Getting in early (right now!) might be a smart move for your writing career!

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Source: https://blog.reedsy.com/how-to-publish-a-book-on-google-play/