Does anyone even look at Google Books?
When you buy a Distribution package through Lulu, which gives you an ISBN and online listings at retailers worldwide, you also have the option to enable Google Book Search. Your book's PDF file is sent to Google where the text goes into its searchable database.
The entire book is scanned but you can only read snippets of copyrighted books and publishers can remove their books if they no longer want them scanned. Books that are out of copyright can be downloaded as PDFs.
I like the idea but whether it will drive sales remains to be seen.
The Google Books 'About' page contains a testimonial about how great it supposedly is. One author writes: "Lack of exposure is the primary reason that a book like mine would fail in the marketplace. Your search engine is the primary way that people find their way to my website, and subsequently, my book." Another says: "If we have hope as authors in the digital age, it's in projects like Google Book Search."
It may take two months for your book to be indexed once submitted, and mine isn't on there yet. But when it is, will I see a jump in sales all of a sudden? I don't think so. Maybe it's not so big in the UK, but I don't hear of people using Google Books Search regularly. Still, it is only in Beta (testing) mode and I do like the idea of books being on there -- it's a nice concept. I managed to discover through the Book Search that I was cited in three publications, which was pretty cool. It also seems to be a useful source for students, historians and other researchers.
Another testimonial said their book's sales rank "jumped 85 per cent" on an online retailer's site. Sounds good in print, but if mine did that, it would jump from 1.2 million on Amazon.com to 200,000 or something -- not a huge achievement by any means!
The entire book is scanned but you can only read snippets of copyrighted books and publishers can remove their books if they no longer want them scanned. Books that are out of copyright can be downloaded as PDFs.
I like the idea but whether it will drive sales remains to be seen.
The Google Books 'About' page contains a testimonial about how great it supposedly is. One author writes: "Lack of exposure is the primary reason that a book like mine would fail in the marketplace. Your search engine is the primary way that people find their way to my website, and subsequently, my book." Another says: "If we have hope as authors in the digital age, it's in projects like Google Book Search."
It may take two months for your book to be indexed once submitted, and mine isn't on there yet. But when it is, will I see a jump in sales all of a sudden? I don't think so. Maybe it's not so big in the UK, but I don't hear of people using Google Books Search regularly. Still, it is only in Beta (testing) mode and I do like the idea of books being on there -- it's a nice concept. I managed to discover through the Book Search that I was cited in three publications, which was pretty cool. It also seems to be a useful source for students, historians and other researchers.
Another testimonial said their book's sales rank "jumped 85 per cent" on an online retailer's site. Sounds good in print, but if mine did that, it would jump from 1.2 million on Amazon.com to 200,000 or something -- not a huge achievement by any means!
Labels: google books, marketing, self-publishing
posted by kim | 5:50 AM
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