Next, click on “Add your first book” in the dashboard. To avoid disappointment, be sure to set up your book at least two weeks in advance. Note: it can take up to 12 days for Google to review and activate your account. So the first thing you’ll need to do is enter your payment and tax information, and link your bank account. Simple: you’ll want Google Play to be able to pay you your royalties. If not, you’ll have to create a Google account. Note that you’ll need an associated Google account. Just click on “Get Started” and fill in your details to create your account. Google Play now has a simple landing page for authors looking to publish their books on the platform: g.co/play/publish. But here’s what you can also get excited about: they’ve also redesigned their whole publishing system, and made it easier than ever to publish on Google Play Books.Īs with any other publishing platform, it all starts with: Step 1: Create your Google Play Partner account So let’s see exactly how you can achieve that! How to publish your book on Google Play in 7 easy stepsĪs we mentioned, Google Play has removed their indeterminate “approval periods” and waiting lists for creating new publisher accounts. On the contrary, you have everything to gain: Google Play even offers better royalties than Amazon (70% vs 35%), and charges no delivery fees, on books priced below $2.99 or above $9.99! Note: Google Play obviously still reserves the right to “price-match” your book if they see a lower price available elsewhere, just like most other retailers.Īll in all, this means that (unless you’re exclusive to Amazon through KDP Select) there is no reason anymore not to have your books on Google Play. As of October 2020, Google Play Books will “unilaterally follow the list price that you provide for an ebook on sales to customers in the United States and Canada,” no matter the price of the ebook. Gone are the times of the widespread auto-discounting too. No approval periods anymore: you can just create your account, set up your book, and upload it to the store - with just a few easy clicks. Now, it’s easier than ever to create a new publisher account. The year will probably be remembered for other somber things, but it also marks the moment that Google Play Books finally opened its doors, in a big way, to indie authors. Overall, though, the clunkiness of the system outweighed its benefits for most authors.Įnter 2020. They used complicated formulas to figure out how that auto-discounting worked and priced their book higher on Google Play to make up for it. Of course, many indie authors found workarounds to avoid any such discount.

This move would trigger price-matching from Amazon (and other retailers), often without the author realizing it in the first place. More than that, the lucky authors who did manage to get into the store would often see their titles get automatically discounted by Google Play, without prior warning. Up until early 2020, you couldn’t actually get your books into the Google Play Books store without first going through an “approval period” and (sometimes) a waiting list. That said, Google Play wasn’t always a great place for indie authors. Google Play is the place to download or purchase apps, games, music, movies, and, well, books to use on your Android devices.Īnd that’s exactly why Google Play Books is such an important place for any author to be nowadays: it allows you to easily reach those billions of people in the world who own Android devices. If you’re one of the 2.5 billion people who own an Android device, you’ll know what we’re talking about. A lesser-known part of Google is its very own online bookstore - Google Play Books - which is integrated within the broader Google Play store. Google is the world’s leading search engine, as you probably already know.

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