How to Self Publish with Google eBooks

Google has finally announced officially its Google Books for the Android Marketplace. This comes 2 months after its venture started into eBooks, and the Google eBookstore.  With over three million titles available, Google is now set to be able to rival bookstore giant Amazon and to take on Apple and the iPhone.

To make its new venture even more appealing to everyone, Google ebooks and Google eBookstores will operate with all eBook formats.

All this makes the Google eBookstore another great market for self-publishers to distribute and sell their ebooks through.

How will a self publisher be able to jump on publishing with Google eBooks while it is hot?  First, you will need to create an account with Google (if you don’t already have one) and sign up with Google Books.  Once you have done this, and agreed to terms to allow your books to be listed, you will be allowed to join eBookstore and become a Google Books Partner.

You are able to physically mail your books to Google for scanning or upload them in PDF format.  This is done through the Google Books Partner Program.  *There are different Terms of Service for Google Books and Google eBookstore.   Once you submit your books to Google’s eBookstore, it will be linked back to your Google eBook listing.  You are able to control how much of your book is being shared, and you can change the amount.  20% is the average amount, but you can adjust that to be higher, or lower.

One negative aspect to this seemingly simple process is that, as stated above, you need to submit your book in PDF format and each book must have an ISBN number (specifics are at http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?hl=en_US&answer=20028)

Of course you can send Google a hard copy of your book and they will enter it manually, but that would be a timely process.  You can read more about submiting a copy of your book for scanning and processing here: http://books.google.com/support/partner/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=106169

So, should you bother when Amazon and Apple offer a larger market? Well, they also have more competition between authors. So, even though you’re listing in a smaller market, your exposure might be higher.  I would recommend list your ebook in all the major ebook store and seeing which one works best for you.

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