Springer: more than 29,000 titles now live in Google Book Search

Springer Science+Business Media (www.springer.com), the world’s largest science, technology and medicine book publisher, has announced that more than 29,000 Springer titles are now live in Google Book Search, allowing users to easily discover and purchase these titles from local booksellers, online retailers and Springer itself. Springer also reported increasing interest in its older titles. The publisher attributes this growth, in part, to its involvement with the Google Book Search program.

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

Springer titles have been viewed as many as one million times in a one-month period through the Google program. Springer’s engineering and computer science books have done particularly well, representing 14 percent and 15 percent, respectively of the clicks on Google’s “buy this book” link. Springer titles published before 1997 account for 20 percent of all the company’s “buy this book” clicks on Google Book Search. In addition, 26 percent 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.