Publisher Case Studies:

Thoughts from publishers:

"At first we were afraid of putting excerpts of our books on Book Search. We thought people might read and then leave. Instead, Google has proven to be a powerful marketing tool. Last year, for example, Springer experienced increased sales of our backlist, after we started marking out titles available through Google."
– Paul Manning, Vice President, Book Sales, Springer
Source

"When people can search books, they will discover forgotten gems – to which authors and publishers can then assert their rights, perhaps bringing them back into print, laying claim to a share of the advertising revenue, or enabling click through to an electronic copy. But for that dream to happen, someone has to make the investment to create the search index. New technology always brings challenges, but it also brings opportunities. A recent study by Roger Magoulas and Ben Lorica of O'Reilly Research provided strong data to support the assertion that online access drives usage of content that is generally not available in print. With Google Book Search, 27% of page views come from books generating only 2% of unit sales, and fully 47% [of page views] come from books generating only 9% of unit sales! There is significant demand for books that are generally unavailable in print."
– Tim O'Reilly, Founder and CEO, O'Reilly Media
Source 1 and Source 2

"A 1999 Blackwell's title, Metaphysics: An Anthology, has had 2,583 pageviews and 597 "buy this book" click-throughs since it became part of the program. Without any other marketing, the title has had its best year in the US since publication...the high rate of 'buy this book' clicks is translating into sales for our deep backlist."
– Ed Crutchely, Book Sales Director, Blackwell's
Source

[HarperCollins] Group president Brian Murray said Google has delivered more than six million page views for HarperCollins in 16 months. On average, each title has had 97 page views. Murray pointed to Mere Christianity, by C S Lewis, listed on the [HarperCollins] website, where it has had 351 page views and 14 "buy this book" clicks. On Google, the same title has had 15,641 page views and 284 click-throughs. Murray added..."It drives highly-qualified traffic to our site. The results suggest it leads to book purchase and intuitively we believe this."
– Brian Murray, HarperCollins Group President
Source 1
Source 2

"Based on our experience over the last seven years, I can predict with confidence that online-search capabilities will boost book sales: A university press that joins Google will find itself using 'print-on-demand' technology to fill orders from its backlist for that 1958 tome on the Maginot Line that it never dreamed would have a life in the 21st century. At our press, every new book we published was scanned and made navigable online, free, at the same time it was available for sale. To our delight, we found that page images with searchable text behind them actually seemed to increase sales. Google is offering something marvelous; its model is more likely to help more people find library resources and publishers' works than anything else on the horizon."
– Michael Jensen, Director of Publishing Technologies, National Academies Press
Source

"The platform Google is proposing offers enormous potential to publishers, particularly to promote and sell backlist titles, but the real beneficiaries are readers because it puts books, many of which they may never have seen before in physical form, in front of them for the very first time. For publishers, the benefit is in the control we have over our titles: we determine which books to sell and promote, we set the prices and we robustly retain our copyrights. The model will continue to evolve but the consultative approach between Google and publishers sets an important precedent."
– Christoph Chesher, Group Sales Director, Taylor & Francis
Source

More thoughts from publishers