Indie Authors Can Now Sell on Google Play
By: Tessa Schlesinger
Tags: Writer, Money, Writing, Authors, Indie

Indie Authors Can Now Sell on Google Play

Until October 2020, it was beyond difficult for indie authors to be accepted to sell their books on Google Play. Now we’re all accepted. Tessa Schlesinger Dec 24, 2020·3 min read

Getting in early is the key to success. It’s been barely two months since Google Play began to accept applications from indie authors, and now is the time before its oversubscribed.

The process to apply is simple. You are asked for an email address, your website, and your bank details. I’m not sure if you have to have a website. I have a really grotty one, and I’m still waiting to find the magic web designer who is going to make it function and look like a million bucks.

It’s also possible that Google checks out that you are an author. Generally if you are recognized as an author, they will give you an author panel (which I still haven’t completed), but anyway.

Unfortunately, if you live in a third world country, you will not be able to have your payments paid directly into your bank account, so you will have to set up an account with Payoneer.

Google Play books are available in seventy five countries (there are 196 countries in the world), and the app has two billion users. It’s a great market.

How to Publish Your EBooks to Google Play

Uploading your book to Google Play is quite different to uploading it to other online bookstores. For a start, you can’t upload in MS Word. You have to upload in either PDF or ePub. Google Play does not convert the ebooks for you so if you convert in PDF, they will sell them in PDF, and if you upload in ePub, they will sell them in ePub. That’s a bit of a problem because I don’t know any writers who have ePub software. However, it averages about $25.00 for the software, so if you’re selling well in PDF format, you might want to invest in ePub software. If you upload the books in both formats, according to my chat with Google Books, you will sell more. You can also activate DRM which I advise. I have too many of my ebooks downloading freely on the web. That’s why I never give away free books on the web anymore. Once they’re out there, hackers easily enable them to be available free elsewhere.

Unlike other sites, Google Play does not ask for a specific size for the book cover illustration. You can upload any cover (I would stick with the size that KDP recommends), and they will publish that cover as is. Book covers must be in PNG, JPG, or PDF format.

Your price will be converted automatically to other currencies if you chose to sell to all the countries that Google Play caters to. Google Play also provides an excellent tutorial for how to upload your ebooks, plus they have an outstanding chat service. That is very unusual for Google, and I am inclined to believe that they’re hoping to challenge Amazon and Apple in the booksales field.

If You’ve Never Written a Book Before…

If you write content with ease, you might want to consider writing ebooks. I’m not going to tell you that marketing them or selling them is easy. It’s not. I can tell you that Indie ebooks are outpacing recognized authors, probably because as indie authors, we’re a helluve lot less expensive. And just because we haven’t gone through a traditional publisher doesn’t mean we can’t write well.

If you’re keen on learning how to write a book, tell me in the comment below, and I’ll consider writing an article on the main criteria for writing books that sell.