- Are you looking for an alternative
to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing?
Would you like to reach a
very large and wide audience
on the world's largest and
most used search engine?
Then you may want to
consider Google Play Books
for distributing your eBooks.
I'm gonna talk more
about the pros and cons
in today's Google Play Books review,
so make sure that you stay tuned.
(upbeat music)
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a single video.
Today is gonna be more of a brief overview
when it comes to Google Play Books,
and why you should utilize this avenue,
or why you shouldn't.
There's a bit more of a deep dive
when it comes to Google Play Books
that my wife and I had discussed
on a previous live broadcast.
I'm gonna leave the link to that
in the description down below.
Also, just as a heads up,
as we kinda go into things here,
if you already have a
Google Play Books account,
folks, make sure that you
log in to your account
because there actually has been a change
in the terms of services.
And if you don't agree
to that here really soon,
they're gonna end up
freezing your account,
you wanna get on over there
agree to the terms of service.
And we're gonna talk a little bit more
about that TOS here in today's video.
What exactly is Google Play Books anyways?
Well, think of it kinda like
how Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing
has the Amazon platform to
distribute Kindle books.
Google Play Books does that exactly.
Among the big four Amazon alternatives,
Google Play Books has treated
this household quite well.
And I'm pretty happy with it.
But there does come its
fair share of pros and cons.
But let's not get too far
ahead of ourselves here.
Just to be clear, Google Play
Books only distributes eBooks,
they don't cover Print on Demand,
and they don't cover audiobooks as of yet.
And also, you're gonna need to have
your files type in either PDF or EPUB.
They won't accept DOC or DOCX
like you would expect from say, KDP.
But why exactly Google Play Books?
Why would you consider publishing
to this platform anyway?
Indexability on Google.
Indexability is another way of saying
making it searchable on the
world's largest and most used
search engine online today.
So by listing your books
through Google Play Books,
you further increase the
odds of discoverability.
That's not to say
that you're not gonna be
discoverable on Amazon
through the Google search engine.
But you certainly greatly
increase your odds
of discoverability, when
you're going directly
to a platform that Google uses.
The See Inside.
So similar to the Look
Inside program on KDP,
there's kind of a see inside program,
now I might be messing up
what they actually call it,
essentially, there is a sample content
that you're able to show
to your browsing customer,
or potential readers.
And it typically starts out
right about 10% of your book,
but you can actually adjust it to more.
Now, here's the really cool feature
in that they will index that content.
So whatever is in that
percentage of the See Inside,
it will actually be searchable
through the Google search engine.
Now, it could be good, that could be bad.
That just is up to you, on
how much you want to show
to the general rousing audience online.
International distribution.
Going out to 75 countries in total,
with some restrictions
applying in some areas.
This is quite a big reach.
Of course, again, Google, it's everywhere,
it's being utilized just
about in every capacity.
So 75 countries, that's pretty insane.
I'd say the only thing
closest to that type of
distribution is Amazon.
And even then, Google gets into areas
that even Amazon hasn't even touched yet.
Now, let's talk about
the royalty structure,
'cause this is what kinda
changed, and I mentioned something
about the terms of service changing.
And it's actually for the better.
And something that was
really relieved to hear
that it seems like Google Play Books
really wants to work with you, the author,
getting it to where
there is a little bit of a value exchange,
rather than that lower percentage
that we were previously getting.
And what we were getting
originally was 52% royalties.
You compare that to say
something like Amazon KDP,
where you get 70%, within
that sweet spot, or 35%.
Okay, 52% is definitely better than 35%.
But we can all agree that is
definitely lower than say, 70%.
Well, they decided to step up their game,
it was almost like they were
paying attention to Amazon.
And were like, "Oh, maybe we
need to kind of adjust this
"because it's clear,
"our competitors are
doing something right."
So they just announced this 70% option
that's available in US,
Canada, and Australia.
Knowing Google, they may
start to expand that.
But that is speculative,
they never said anything.
I don't have any contact
with anybody in there.
But nonetheless, I think
we can probably all agree,
we'll probably see it in other regions,
like say, the UK, Germany,
France, so on and so forth.
But here's the catch,
in order to get the 70%
it's much like Amazon KDP,
you actually have to stay
within their sweet spot,
as I call it, and for the US and Canada,
it's exactly like KDP in that,
it has to stay between 2.99 and $9.99.
Whereas in Australia,
it has to be a minimum
price of $3.99 to $11.99 .
Anything outside that sweet spot,
it's gonna be at that 52%
model, now, that's not terrible.
Again, it's definitely more
competitive than that 35%
that you're probably used
to over an Amazon KDP.
Now, here's the part
that kinda makes me cringe a little bit.
It's the pricing ambiguity,
if you scroll through the
updated Terms of Service,
there's a part that kind of
makes you scratch your head.
And something that was shared
with me before by some viewers
was that, Google was going in,
and despite what you were
putting in for your retail price,
they would just drop it
anytime they wanted to.
And here, you were still getting paid 52%
regardless of that drop.
Whereas on Amazon KDP,
if they go and they
adjust a pricing on it,
you're typically rewarded
at that retail price.
Now, that's typically with print books.
On eBooks, they've never
been known to do anything
except for a price match.
Now, Google will do a price match,
if they see a competitor at a lower price,
they will do that price match.
In fact, this is exactly what they said
in the email they sent out last week.
"We reserve the right to
discount if we see a lower price
"for the ebook available
from another retailer."
Okay, that's fair, that makes sense,
in fact, I think that really awesome,
they're saving me a lot of time.
That way, if I drop a price somewhere,
they're just gonna go ahead
and drop it down for me,
And I don't need to worry
about logging and fixing it.
But you remember I said,
"Something made me cringe."
And it's that, they just
changed things on a whim.
And that doesn't sit well with me,
it's like they're reaching into my pocket,
and just grabbing money out.
That's not cool,
especially if I'm asking it
to be listed at a specific price.
And it's the same across the board.
So if you scroll through
the terms of service,
again, what it says is the price changes
are at their discretion,
they even say that you can
suggest the list price.
And I'm using quotations
because that's exactly what it
says inside the term service,
you actually suggest the list price.
I mean, what?
Why do I suggest?
Why don't I just set it?
Well, Google wants you to kinda know,
they still have the steering wheel,
they're the ones who are in charge.
And I think everybody can agree,
if you are distributing
through any form of a platform,
you really technically aren't in charge.
Okay, so what about the payout?
Well, it's very much similar
to what we're used to over an Amazon KDP,
in that you are paid out 60
days after the close of a month.
So this is kind of giving them enough time
for any kind of returns, refunds.
And that way, they can kind
of get everything calculated
and sent to you.
And it's anything that is above
$1, they will send to you.
Something I didn't see before
maybe I was sleeping on
this was, promotions.
You can actually do some
pricing promotions through them.
And they have a nice little user interface
that you're able to go in,
select the promotion that
you would like to do,
but you have to upload
it through a CSV file,
essentially a spreadsheet of some sort,
you'd put in your title,
and the specific price
that you want to do,
and you're gonna put
the start and end date.
It seems fairly intuitive,
I've yet to actually utilize that option.
Definitely would love to know
if you've tried it yourself.
(swoosh)
But how about the pros and the cons
to Google Play Books review
'cause folks, it ain't all
sunshine, and rainbows,
and puppy dogs, and unicorns.
Let's go ahead and get all the
good stuff out the way first.
The world's largest and
most used search engine.
It's Google, I mean,
do I need to say more?
They have a wide reach, and as I said,
Google Play Books has treated
this household pretty well.
Now, are we gonna become billionaires
or millionaires from it?
Probably not right, at this point.
But it's enough to make
it worth our while,
and I think you'll find that too.
An improved user interface.
I've actually had my account
for a little bit over a year
because at the closing
of Pronoun Publishing,
where I was originally
distributing to Google Play Books,
I had to kind of figure
out, "Well, what do I do?"
When pronoun publishing closed up,
they were distributing
to Google Play Books
on my behalf as an aggregate publisher.
And so I scrambled to kinda find a way
to get in Google Play Books.
It was fortunate for me at that time,
they just started opening up
access against the public.
It was closed for a minute or two,
and then they reopen it back up.
The 70% royalty.
I mean, 70 cents out of every dollar
for your publication, that's not bad,
you're not gonna find many
trade published deals,
that's going to have a
structure something like this.
So you self-publishers out there
that are utilizing any Avenue.
Anytime you see 70% or 80% of royalties.
That's pretty darn good.
But here are the cons, and I'm
not gonna pull any punches.
And Google, I'm sorry,
I love your platform.
But these three things, they irk me,
they get my goat, and I
quote, suggested list price.
Okay, so you probably saw this one coming,
I already said this before, it's wrong.
Either I put in the
price, and we lock it in.
And we both agree that this
is what's going to happen.
And this is what you're gonna pay me,
or you just price it for me
because otherwise you're
just driving the vehicle.
And I'm just kind of just
here giving you stuff.
So the suggested list price,
I think that's bogus, Google Play Books,
come on, now get rid of that.
I don't wanna feel like
you're gonna be reaching into my pocket,
taking money out at your discretion,
it should be something
that's a partnership
that we're working on.
Accessible publisher information.
Whoo, it is Google.
And they have a ton of information,
it is really hard to find
what you need to find.
Now, they do have a live chat feature
inside your dashboard
that is super helpful,
I highly recommend you
take advantage of it.
It's a little slower,
you might have to wait in the
queue for a minute or two.
But they've been super helpful,
but I kinda like to have
my information real quick.
As an example, if you
wanna find out information
about say, KDP, they
have help.kdp.amazon.com
or something like that.
You can just search it up
and you find it super easy.
Or say through Draft2Digital
the aggregate publishers,
you go into their FAQ section,
they have everything that
you could possibly think of,
and not where it's like overwhelming.
To their credit, Google Play
Books is getting better.
As I've mentioned before,
their user interface is
continually improving,
when it had originally fired off.
It was garbage, it just did not look good.
It was hard to figure out,
it was hard to navigate.
Well, now they're kind of improving that,
and things are becoming more accessible.
For example, when I got ready
to record this particular video,
I wasn't sure how many countries
they were firing off to.
And I just kind of searched around.
And it took me probably
about five minutes,
and I said, "Ah, screw it,
I'll go ahead over to the chat
"and ask them that question."
It seemed they didn't know it right away.
But before they got back to me,
I'd already found the answer to it.
So this tells me that at
least the user interface
is definitely improving.
But again, they need to have
some more accessible information
to where I'm not having
to read "War and Peace"
in order to figure out a simple answer,
like how many countries
does this distribute to.
No print or audiobook options.
It is Google Play Books,
google play in general
actually are able to
put podcasts over there.
So there is audio, there
are audiobooks available.
But there's no direct path to that
through the Google Play Book's dashboard.
Will it be available?
I foresee something like that happening.
But again, this is speculative.
Now, as far as Print on Demand,
this is gonna be Google Play
Books play at this point,
they're gonna have to determine
whether they want to do that.
It would be really awesome to see them
utilizing all three avenues of eBooks,
print books and audiobooks.
This is going to really
put them into a position
where they're gonna be very
much legitimate competition
to Amazon Kindle Direct Publishing.
(swoosh)
Overall, my opinion when it
comes to Google Play Books
is to solid thumbs up, and
especially over the last year,
and in the past week of them changing
the terms of service to 70%.
This really makes me very happy
to actually release an updated
Google Play Books review.
And if you wanna get yourself
an account, it's for free.
You don't need to invest any money,
you can upload everything
at no extra cost,
you've gotta to visit
dalelinks.com/google.
Again, that's dalelinks.com/google.
But if you don't wanna fool around
with uploading directly
over to Google Play Books,
and you still wanna get it put up there.
One of the avenues you may wanna consider
is PublishDrive they're
an aggregate publisher
and they actually represent you
over in the Google Play Books platform.
If you want more details
I want go over this next video,
I'll meet you over there.
I'm gonna tell you exactly
why you may wanna consider
using PublishDrive
for Google playbooks, see you there.
