How and why you should publish your eBook with Google Play Books

A channel that is very often overlooked for publishing your eBook is the Google Play Book store, being a part of Google and its Android operating system (which is used by over 3 billion people worldwide) it is another place where you should consider having a copy of your book.

So, if you want to get your title on Google’s Play Books, where do you start?
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First you need to go to the Books Partner Center, here you can log in with your Google account details (which I’m sure you have already, but if not, you can of course sign up for a new one for free). Once you have signed in, you’ll need to add some details, these will be things like your bank account and tax information, from here you should then be able to add your first book.

To add your first book you’ll need to click on the Book Catalog link on the left and then select Add Book, for your eBook you’ll select to sell on Google Play and then below this assign the ISBN, if you already have your own ISBN, you can add this, or, choose to add the Google Book ID.

Next, you’ll add information about your eBook, this will include the title, author name, book description, publication date, format, age ranges for readers and so on. You can then click on the save and continue button to move on to ‘Genres’ here you can add the genres for your specific book, then click on ‘Save & Continue’. You next move on to Contributors and then finally Settings, in settings you can decide how much of the book can be previewed, if you will have the DRM rights switched on and if you will allow a certain amount of your book able to be copied and pasted.
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Content, once you have set up the specifics for the book, you will then upload the actual book itself, for the interior you can use either a PDF or ePub file, if you choose a PDF, then the reader will see the book in the original layout (it won’t be reflowable to fit different screens etc.), images and book covers for PDFs should be 300dpi, the book should also be submitted in portrait. For ePub books, the book cover should be a part of the file.

What about royalties?

Royalties for Google books are 70% from the list price on the majority of your book sales, however, there are some countries who have not signed up to Google’s updated terms of service (from 2019), and in these countries you will receive 52% royalties from each book sold (these countries are; Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, and Vietnam).

Can you sell your eBook for free?

To do this you book must be available to be previewed, when you set up the book you change the preview amount to 100%, in the pricing page of the settings you will need to zero the price (for Worldwide/each country you sell it in). You can also offer your book for free for a limited time within the pricing duration section, this is under ‘Show Additional Settings’. Please note, you will still need to have set up your account with your payment details (even if the book is free).

As with offering your eBook for free during a limited time frame, you can also use this option to run a discounted price for your book, so offering it for 50% off for a couple of weeks and promoting this to you readers.

Another option that Google Books offers is in its Auto Narrated Audiobooks.

Here you can create an audio book (either from an English or Spanish book) using their auto narrate tool, you will need to own the rights to the book, it will have to be written in English or Spanish, be as an ePub file, and you offer the same book as an eBook on Google Play Books.
Currently the auto-narrate books are available in Argentina, Australia, Canada, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Spain, United Kingdom and USA.

From your account you can either add a new book or open an existing one and click on Content and Create auto narrated audio book. From here you can choose a template and convert the eBook for audio, Google play gives options for editing, reviewing and adjusting the pronunciations of certain words too, you can see more details on this from the audio help page.

Is it worth uploading your eBook to Google Books?

As always, this depends upon any restrictions with promotions/programs that you may have your existing eBook enrolled in, if this is not an issue, then yes, Google are a huge platform and one which has a massive reach, along with selling your eBook you have the option of converting it to audio (which will get slicker as time progresses too), so if you are self-publishing, it is worth making the most of your Gmail account and publishing on Google Books.