Springer Sees Record Backlist Sales with Google Book Search

Springer Publishing Company credits its relationship with Google Book Search for the increased sales of its backfile. Springer's backfile totals 40,000 titles and 26,000 of these titles are available via Google Book Search. Google scans the full text of participating publishers' titles so that Google users can see books that match the topics they are searching on. When users click on a book search result, they're taken to a Google-hosted web page displaying a scanned image of the relevant page from the book. Each page also contains multiple "Buy this Book" links, which enable users to purchase the book from online retailers. Publishers will receive a share of the revenue generated from ads appearing on their content.

Some highlights as reported by Springer are:

Springer’s books have been viewed as much as a million times in a one-month period, with book views occurring proportionately to clicks on the "buy this book" link. Its engineering and computer science titles are particularly high performing, representing 14 and 15%, respectively, of the clicks on the "buy this book" link.

Springer books published before 1996 account for 20% of all the company’s "buy this book" clicks on Google Book Search

26% of users who click on "buy this book" select the link to Springer’s own website, driving additional traffic to the publisher’s own online platform. The remaining links drive users to alternative online retailers. Springer books published before 1996 account for 20% of all the company’s "buy this book" clicks on Google Book Search.

Some of these older titles are in fact out of print, but their discoverability and popularity in Google Book Search has led Springer to consider reprinting them.

For more information and other Google Book Search partner success stories, go here.