How to list an ebook on Google Books
If you've read our ebook about starting a
small business and quitting your job, you'll remember that one of
my top pieces of advice is to keep your costs low. We're just
starting to apply the lessons we learned with our last microbusiness to
our new ebook and are discovering that ebooks are even easier than
physical products to market on the cheap, especially if you leverage
Google Books.
What is Google Books? This facet of the big
search engine company allows publishers and authors to send their books
to Google so that the entire book can be searchable over the
internet. You can set options so that visitors can view anywhere
from 20% to 100% of your book for free online, including or excluding
pictures. I've often been searching for a bit of info, ended up
in the middle of a book listed on Google Books, and become so
enthralled by the book that I headed straight to the library to read
the 80% that isn't freely listed online. I assume that most folks
aren't quite as cheap as I am, and instead plunk down some cash to buy
books like this, especially since Google Books will link directly to
the page on your website where visitors can buy your book.
Google Books amounts to free advertising, and the website
is set up to make it easy for ebook publishers to list their
writings. If you don't already have a Google account, you'll need
to sign up for one. Then add in a bit of contact information and
upload a pdf file of your book (or mail in a paper copy, but this will
take much, much longer.) Since you probably won't have an ISBN
number, you'll have to skip over "1. Tell us about your books" and go
straight to "2. Send us your books." If the file you're uploading
contains the cover and the content of the book all together, rename the
file to match the title of your book and upload it as is.
Otherwise, you'll need to read Google's simple instructions about
naming the cover files and content files.
Then be patient and wait
for your book to show up. This is the stage I'm at --- I'll be
sure to update you on how the next steps go once I get to them.
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