Join the Partner Program

Google is partnering with authors and publishers to build its content for Google Book Search. Google is primarily looking for publishers who have books it wants to appear in the Google Book Search. Google also wants to partner with people who have self-published their books and with authors who currently own the copyright to their books.

Friends, authors, publishers: Send me your books

Publishers have incentive to join the Google Partner Program. It’s a free way to promote book sales. People who do searches will find books, read the preview, and hopefully click a link to one of the online bookstores and immediately buy the book.

This is a great way for people find books in which they have an interest. More and more online bookstores allow readers to browse a few pages of the books, see the table of contents, and in some cases view the index of the book just as they do when browsing for books in a physical bookstore. Even though Google is not a bookstore, Google Book Search offers the same features and drives book sales.

Authors are not left out of the partner program. Google is looking for authors who have self-published their books. Additionally, when books go out of print, the copyright, once held by the publisher, normally returns to the author. At this time, the author may choose to work with Google by submitting the book. It might also be a great time to write a second edition of the book and self-publish it using Google to help market the book.

Another thing authors can do is to contact their publishers and convince them to send their books to Google for scanning. It’s important that authors take an active part in the marketing process.

Participate in the Partner Program

Becoming a part of the Partner Program is simple. Just follow these steps:

1. Click the Join Now link on the left side of many of the Google Book Search Help pages. Google collects some basic information from you. It first needs to know if you are the person who owns the rights to the books.

2. Click the Function drop-down list to tell Google if you are an author, a publisher, a book distributor, publishing service, or other (see Figure 6.4).

   
   Figure 6.4: Click the Join Now link to access this form and join the Partner Program.

3. Respond to the remaining General Information fields as in step 2.

4. Type your full name, mailing address, e-mail address, and telephone number in the field under “Contact Information.” When you complete the form, Google sends you an e-mail message.

5. Check your e-mail inbox and respond to the Google message by clicking the link in the e-mail message. You are not automatically enrolled in the program. Your application is reviewed by the Google Books staff, and you are notified of the decision.