You know a product is in trouble when the company sends out an email saying it's not. Google recently sent an email to publishers, like me, saying:
There have been some incorrect characterizations about this program in the press, and we want to be sure you have a clear understanding of the program....
Some groups were charging Google with bypassing copyrights through the digitizing of books from libraries. The Google Print Team emphasizes this is not the case:
Our goal is to help people discover books online, not read them online; a user who finds a copyrighted books that was scanned through the Library Project can't view even a single page from this book, unless the copyright holder has given us explicit permission through the Publisher Program to show more.
Google Books has other problems, however, such as being painfully slow in getting books digitized and into its servers. For me, however, it was the concern that 20% of the content of each book is made available at a time. Twenty percent is far too large, amounting to 80 pages of a typical 400-page book. That caused me to cut way back on the number of my ebooks that I exposed through Google.
The benefit of Google Booksto publishers is twofold: their books are exposed to people searching with Google, and they get a chance to make some $$$ by (1) people clicking on Google Ads associated with the book, and (2) buying the book outright.
My books that are available through Google Books are:
Inside Generic CADD 6
Inside Visio 2002
Tailoring AutoCAD 2004
Tailoring IntelliCAD
What's Inside? AutoCAD 2005
Since going "live" (being accessible by anyone), they've generated me $1.03.
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