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Publishers Search for Truth about Google Book Search

Book Marketing Tool or Intellectual Property Drain?

by Jim Barnes

While there are a number of people in the publishing industry who are critical of Google Book Search, most of them voicing fears about loss of royalties and intellectual property rights, not all industry players share the same view. In fact, many publishers and authors, exposure-hungry independents among them, support the project and recognize the benefits Google Book Search can offer.

The split among publishers was most recently on display during the London Book Fair, where Nigel Newton of Bloomsbury (publisher of the Harry Potter books) called for a boycott of Google. Newton acknowledged that scanning and making available non-copyrighted works is not illegal, but he questioned the scanning of entire university library collections (Harvard, Stanford and University of Michigan have joined in) that include copyrighted works whose authors aren’t consulted. On the other side of the debate, Victoria Barnsley of Harper Collins called Google’s effort to advance search capabilities “exciting” and added that it would “transform” the publishing industry.

Currently lost in this debate is how Google Book Search provides a new online storefront from which publishers and authors can market their books. In fact, many publishers and authors find the tool useful, and believe it is a positive step towards evolving the industry.

Back to the Beginning
Google Book Search as a project is almost as old as Google itself. In 1996, Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page were graduate computer science students working on a research project supported by the Stanford Digital Library Technologies Project. Their goal was to make digital libraries work, and their big idea was as follows: in a future world in which vast collections of books are digitized, people would use a "web crawler" to index the books' content and analyze the connections between them, determining any given book's relevance and usefulness by tracking the number and quality of citations from other books.  

The first phase of Google Book Search (then called Google Print) was launched in December 2003, with the integration of basic book marketing materials such as first chapters, reviews, and bibliographic information. The Publisher Program was unveiled at the Frankfurt Book Fair in October 2004. The Publisher Program is an online book marketing program designed to help publishers and authors promote their books, The Library Project, which is an effort to include the collections of a few libraries in Google Book Search and, like a card catalogue, show information about the book plus a few snippets, was launched two months later.  

“Google Book Search helps users search through the vast amount of information contained in the world's books to provide a list of texts relevant to their search,” says Jim Gerber, Content Partnerships Director at Google. “This means readers can find more books, and authors and publishers can connect with a much wider audience.”

Gerber explains the common misunderstanding that Google Book Search makes entire books available to users: “Just because a book can be found in Google Book Search does not mean it can be fully read. Once users find a list of books relevant to them, they will only be able to see sample pages from the book if the publisher has authorized it, or if the book is no longer covered by copyright. Otherwise, users will only see a page of basic bibliographic information -- much like a card catalog entry -- along with up to three short snippets showing where their search term appears in the book. Users are only able to access full book views for texts that are out of copyright.” See: www.google.com/printsnippet.

Explained this way, Google Book Search is like a traditional card catalog, helping readers find books without delivering the book itself. But with its electronic capabilities, Google Book Search harnesses the power of full text search, which makes getting a list of all books that mention "Martin Luther King" as easy as finding all websites that mention "Martin Luther King". For publishers who wish to promote their books via Google Book Search, it gives them a way to let readers get just a taste of a book and then purchase it through associated links.

    “Our goal is to work closely with the publishers to help them generate additional sales from online vehicles,” says Gerber. “In fact, in response to demand from our publishing partners, we just introduced a tool that will eventually enable publishers to sell online access to their titles for viewing on the Internet. Publishers in the US and UK are now choosing which books to include, and setting their own prices for access to their content. Consumers cannot yet buy online access to books. We are working to make this feature available worldwide. Selling online access is the first of many new products being requested by partners to stimulate demand for books which Google hopes to create.”  

Google’s current publisher partners include: McGraw-Hill, HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Wiley, Holtzbrinck US, Hyperion, Pearson, Taylor & Francis, Cambridge, Chicago, Oxford, Princeton, Wolters Kluwer, Grupo Anaya, Fondo de Cultura Economica, Scholastic, Springer, Houghton Mifflin, Thomson Learning, Blackwell Publishing, Groupe De Boeck, Walter de Gruyter, Perseus, and others. What They’re Saying
Here are a few personal accounts from publishers about their experience with Google Book Search:

Arcadia Publishing is one of the leading local and regional history publishers in the United States. The company feels strongly about Google Book Search, arguing that participation in the project has increased visibility of Arcadia books, led to increased awareness of Arcadia’s products, and eventually increased sales. Arcadia believes that Google Book Search enables the company to better target the appropriate audience, something that is difficult to do the traditional avenues of book stores and libraries.

"We publish books that are relevant not only to people who live in the area the book covers, but also people who used to live there, people who want to live there, people who had family who lived there," says Director of Sales Kate Everingham. "But typically, the only way to do targeted marketing is to sell the book in local bookstores, which doesn't reach all these constituencies."

A second challenge is the sheer volume and frequency of titles Arcadia produces – about 8 to 10 new books each week. "Our marketing depends on people knowing that we specialize in local titles, rather than assuming they know about any single title. It's a big challenge to market such a big catalog effectively,” says Everingham.

"We have submitted everything that is currently active and has already been published, and we typically send books every week... Our experience to date has been really positive. It was a cinch to enroll in the program and get started."

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John Wilhite is an author, editor, website and digital book publisher. He understands the impact technology has on today’s culture, and views technological advancements like Google Book Search as beneficial tools for the publishing industry. He believes the path to knowledge is through research and scholarship, and says Book Search is able to point him in the right direction on topics of interest, where he discovers books he would not have otherwise found.

"[Google Book Search] is an indispensable service that benefits readers, researchers, writers, authors, and publishers by making information accessible to all rather than merely to those who live near a research library. I cannot physically nor financially travel to distant libraries for my research on Latin American history that is contained in hard to find or out of print books. I hope Google will continue this service unhindered and in fact expand it to include libraries around the world."

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Richard Lowry, author and self-publisher of The Gulf War Chronicles offers another perspective on the benefits of Google. When his first book appeared on Google Book Search, its sales increased dramatically and allowed Lowry to establish himself as a credible author. Lowry is preparing to release his second book later this year, and due to the success Google Book Search enabled him to achieve, he gained attention from traditional publishing houses and has signed a contract that will see his second book in retailers across the country.

“When The Gulf War Chronicles first appeared in Google Book Search, its sales ranking on the Barnes & Noble index jumped by 85 percent – and stayed there,” says Lowry.

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Author David Sterry brings a unique voice to the debate because he makes his living writing books. He was a professional actor and comic for 20 years, and still tours all over with a 1-man show. He has written several books, including the sports-related Satchel Sez, which was an American Library Association pick of the year, a bestselling memoir Chicken, with the sequel, Master of Ceremonies: A True Story of Love, Murder & Chippendales due out next spring. He also has a YA title due out April 7th (Travis & Freddy's Adventures in Vegas), and the second in the series due out in the summer of '07. Currently, he is touring around with Putting Your Passion Into Print, the Workman book about how to get a book published.

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As with many other aspects of Internet communications and commerce, a healthy skepticism about their effectiveness and security is understandable. But think of how public libraries have changed, and how the good old card catalog has abandoned that old wooden cabinet and now resides online. With proper safeguards and security in place, Google can become an efficient interface between books and potential readers and consumers: part card catalog, part reference librarian – and best of all for independent authors and publishers - part buyer’s guide.