How to Upload Books to Google Play Books App

Google is the earth's leading search engine, every bit you probably already know. A lesser-known part of Google is its very own online bookstore — Google Play Books — which is integrated inside the broader Google Play store.

If you're 1 of the 2.five billion people who own an Android device, you'll know what we're talking about. Google Play is the place to download or purchase apps, games, music, movies, and, well, books to utilize on your Android devices.

And that'due south exactly why Google Play Books is such an of import identify for any author to be nowadays: it allows yous to easily attain those billions of people in the world who own Android devices.

A cursory history of Google Play Books

That said, Google Play wasn't always a smashing place for indie authors. Up until early 2020, you lot couldn't really get your books into the Google Play Books store without first going through an "approval period" and (sometimes) a waiting list.

More than that, the lucky authors who did manage to become into the store would oft meet their titles go automatically discounted by Google Play, without prior warning. This motion would trigger price-matching from Amazon (and other retailers), often without the author realizing it in the get-go identify.

Of course, many indie authors found workarounds to avoid any such discount. They used complicated formulas to effigy out how that motorcar-discounting worked and priced their book higher on Google Play to brand upwardly for information technology. Overall, though, the clunkiness of the system outweighed its benefits for most authors.

Enter 2020. The year will probably be remembered for other somber things, only it too marks the moment that Google Play Books finally opened its doors, in a large style, to indie authors.

Now, information technology'due south easier than ever to create a new publisher account. No approval periods anymore: you lot can just create your account, fix up your book, and upload information technology to the store — with but a few easy clicks.

Gone are the times of the widespread car-discounting too. As of October 2020, Google Play Books will "unilaterally follow the list toll that yous provide for an ebook on sales to customers in the United States and Canada," no matter the toll of the ebook.

Note: Google Play manifestly still reserves the right to "toll-friction match" your volume if they encounter a lower price bachelor elsewhere, simply like nigh 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 contrary, you have everything to gain: Google Play even offers better royalties than Amazon (70% vs 35%), and charges no commitment fees, on books priced below $ii.99 or in a higher place $nine.99!

So let's see exactly how you can reach that!

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

As nosotros mentioned, Google Play has removed their indeterminate "approval periods" and waiting lists for creating new publisher accounts. Simply here'south what you lot tin can also become excited nigh: they've also redesigned their whole publishing system, and fabricated it easier than ever to publish on Google Play Books.

As with any other publishing platform, it all starts with:

Footstep i: Create your Google Play Partner account

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

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

Step 2: Enter your financial information

Simple: you'll want Google Play to be able to pay you your royalties. So the first thing y'all'll need to do is enter your payment and taxation information, and link your bank account.

Note: it can take up to 12 days for Google to review and activate your account. To avoid disappointment, be sure to prepare your book at to the lowest degree 2 weeks in advance.

Step three: Create your first book

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

Whether you desire to actually publish your ebook and make it available for sale on Google Play, or
Whether you but want to offer a preview of it on Google Books.

It's worth noting this distinction because Google Books is often dislocated with Google Play — and they are really pretty unlike. Google Play is, as we mentioned, an online shop, while Google Books is not. Instead, it's i of the world'due south biggest online index of total-text books, as Google has digitized millions of print and electronic books to make them "searchable" and indexable on search engines. More nearly that initiative here.

If you lot publish on Google Play, your book volition automatically get a page with a preview on Google Books, and so y'all should only select "Offer a preview on Google Books only" if you do non want to publish and sell your book on the Google Play shop. (For example, if you're in KDP Select just still desire your book to be indexed in the Google Books library, picking that option wouldn't break KDP Select's terms.)

Once you click on "Sell ebook on Google Play," you lot'll be prompted to select your volume'southward "ID," i.e. ISBN number. If you lot have an ISBN, yous can enter it. If you don't, merely select the "Become a Google Book ID" option — it's costless.

Stride 4: Fill in your books' metadata

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

About the book
Genres
Contributors
Settings

Allow's get through them in order.

Virtually the book
If yous've already published your book elsewhere, then this part should be pretty quick! You can just paste in your title, subtitle, book clarification, serial title, etc.

If it'southward the start fourth dimension that you're publishing the volume and you haven't written the description (or blurb) withal, then make certain y'all read our mail on how to write a book blurb. As you'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 lot might want to optimize those specifically for Google Play.

If you want your book to exist published immediately, exit the "On-auction date" field blank. If y'all're publishing a pre-guild, so make sure to fill it in with the date on which your book will launch.

One concluding thing on the "About the book" page: Google gives you the opportunity to "add a related book" at the bottom. This is a great gamble to link your volume with other ones, even if they're not in the series (i.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, information technology doesn't limit you in the number of genre categories yous can select. Moreover, information technology lets you select any category from the BISAC (North America) or BIC (UK and Australia) systems:

And so you should spend a good corporeality of time to make sure you find and select all the categories that are relevant to your book. Categories play an important role in Google's search algorithms, and so this will be time well-spent.

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

Preview settings
Hither'south another place where Google gives you more control than its peers. You tin select how much of the book readers will exist able to preview using Google Play's "Expect Inside" characteristic (note, though, that xx% is the minimum):

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

If i of your goals is to optimize your book's presence on Google Books' search (the index nosotros mentioned in step iii), then make sure to click on "Show advanced settings" and fill up those fields in.

Step five: Upload your book and comprehend files

This office should exist pretty straightforward. You lot'll simply demand to have your files on hand, specifically:

Your front embrace image
Your EPUB or PDF
Your back cover image (optional)

To larn more than well-nigh Google Play'southward expected file types and specs, read this back up article.

Now, a really cool thing almost Google Play is that, once your files have been processed and accustomed, you tin can add in "Content Reviewers" simply past entering their email addresses. Doing this will basically grant early on access to your book for complimentary, which makes this a cracking way to share ARC copies with beta readers or reviewers.

This is something you lot can do even after you've finished this setup, and while there are some requirements for Content Reviewers (e.g. they must have a Google account), near people should encounter them. Y'all can learn more than about this handy characteristic here.

Step half dozen: Set your volume's price

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

For example, the below setup will toll your book at £0.99 in the Uk & Ireland, at €0.99 in the Eurozone, and at $0.99 everywhere else.

Note that the "boosted settings" let you to make these prices temporary — which tin can be handy if you want to offer promotional pricing at launch.

Pace 7: Review and publish

You're almost there! The only affair left to do is to brand sure yous've entered everything correctly, eat that fright and anticipation, and hitting that magical "Publish" push.

This is also a good moment to get back to step 5 — your files should be processed past at present — and add together in your "Content Reviewers" but earlier you publish.

Half-dozen tips to boost your Google Play sales

Of course, publishing the book is the easy bit. Getting it to sell — at present, that's some other story. And so we decided to reach out to the Google Play Books team itself, as well as two high-selling authors on the Google Play store, to become some marketing tips directly from them.

Annotation that well-nigh of these tips are exclusive to the Google Play platform, then 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 tin can leverage their specificities to boost your sales on that platform.

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1. Don't bound in and out of exclusivity

This is the very showtime thing that both the Google Play Books team and the authors we consulted told usa (and this tip can actually exist practical to pretty much any non-Amazon retailer). If you lot're constantly opting in and out of KDP Select — and taking your books in and out from wide retailers — you lot seriously damage your chances of getting any sales on these wide retailers.

Note: if y'all don't know what nosotros mean past "exclusivity" and "wide," y'all need to read this article on KDP Select.

Simply it goes even deeper in the instance 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 issue, every reader sees a different personalized bookstore. If books are removed from the store, it disrupts the algorithm's learning about those titles and eliminates the opportunity for those titles to be recommended. More time in the store and more lifetime sales translates to higher discoverability."

2. Leverage metadata intelligently

If yous're familiar with other publishing platforms, yous'll probably accept spotted the 1 thing that seems to exist missing from Google Play's process: keywords.

At no signal does Google Play inquire you for meta keywords to describe your book. On the other mitt, Google Play lets you lot select as many categories as you want. So you demand to leverage the categories to supervene upon the keywords you would utilize on other stores.

For instance, let's say you lot use the keywords "vampire," "19th century," and "gaslamp" on Amazon. You tin can go your book to prove up for these keywords on Google Play by selecting the following BISAC categories:

Immature Adult Fiction / Vampires
Young Developed Fiction / Historical / Us / 19th Century
Fiction / Fantasy / Gaslamp

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

In such cases, you lot have two options:

If you absolutely want your book to exist among the very first to testify up for that keyword, try working it into your subtitle: due east.g. "A Weird W Fantasy Adventure"; or
If you lot desire the book to show upwardly in the search, but don't want to involve your subtitle, you lot can include it in the volume description.

If y'all practise work in keywords into your book description, make sure to exercise so in a natural way. In other words, don't keyword-dump! This might hurt the conversion of your book page more than than it will augment its visibility.

iii. Run a discount promotion

This is naturally a tip that will work for any book on any shop. Only it tends to exist even more effective on Google Play (a less crowded store than Amazon).

First, Google makes information technology extra easy to schedule a cost promotion in advance via the "Promotions" section of the Partner Heart. If you have reward of that — instead of just manually lowering a book's list price in the metadata — it volition trigger a strikethrough of your title's listing prices in the store.

More than chiefly, discounted books tend to get extra visibility on the Google Play store, as the shop homepage (customized to every reader based on their previous action) tends to feature several sections specifically for discounted books. Hither'southward 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 customer notifications. This doesn't mean that every book will receive every promotion, merely this discount significantly increases the book's likelihood of receiving more than promotion in the storefront.

These discount promotions are driven by our algorithm and can 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"

iv. Leverage Google Play promo codes

On tiptop of running a discount promotion, y'all tin also use Google Play'south "promo codes" feature to offer anexclusive special deal to some of your readers.

At that place are 3 types of promo codes you tin generate for Google Play:

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

Now, the free codes will evidently not make you any coin if they're redeemed. But for the percentage off and fixed price promotion codes, the writer will earn the usual 70% royalty on the final price of the ebook (after discount). So if you run a fixed price promo code campaign where readers tin grab the ebook at $0.50, you'd earn $0.35 by promo code redeem.

More importantly, promo code redeems on Google Play accept a direct touch on on rank algorithms. As confirmed to me past the Google Play squad via electronic mail:

"Percentage and fixed cost promo lawmaking redemptions are sales as the customer purchases the volume. They are treated like any other book sale in our shop, which always impacts our algorithm. Free promo code redemptions are treated the same as free downloads in our store. They accept a small impact on our algorithm."

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

five. Use a free series starter

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

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

"The one matter that I recently did that I take never done before was take 3 of my first-in-series free. I got a Bookbub, which I never got earlier, I decided to make two others series starters free along with it during this difficult time. I have seen my sales increase significantly as a result (not just as a event of the Bookbub, even before that promotion went through). I have very strong read through and with having the start book gratuitous, I am seeing a number of my books in the catalog appear on Google Play charts and stay there. That'due south another matter that I really like nearly Google Play: the books accept a lot more stickability on the charts than on other platforms."

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

six. Sign up for the Google Play affiliate program

Want to make an additional 7% committee on ebooks and audiobooks sold on Google Play? But sign up for the Google Play Books affiliate plan. It'south gratuitous to join and currently bachelor for agile partners. If your Google Play Books partner business relationship is eligible, you'll find a link to the affiliate sign-upwardly grade on the homepage of your Partner Centre.

This is not simply a manner to brand a few actress bucks, information technology'south also great for advertising! If y'all run Facebook ads targeting Google Play readers (yes, that's possible), you can employ affiliate 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 be well on your way 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 volume sales, which means that it might be set to grow enough to exist 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/