Google eBooks Launches a Retail Affiliates Program

PW - Jun 16, 2011

Google eBooks has launched an affiliates program that will enable publishers, bloggers, retailers and websites to link to Google eBooks and receive a commission for referring visitors to their sites to Google eBooks to buy books. The Google Afiliates Network was launched as a beta program at the end of 2010, teaming with social reading site GoodReads, which was able to send its members to Google eBooks when they were looking to buy titles.

In a blog post, Google Books product manager Pratip Banerji, product manager, invited all manner of sites to join the Google Afilitates Network and add, “new revenue streams by giving their book-reading audiences an easy way to buy Google eBooks.” After joining, sites can subscribe to the Google eBooks product feed and receive information on all available Google eBooks as well as make use of the Google Books API, which offers access to full-text searches for book information and an embedded viewer that allows websites to embed Google Previews on their sites.

The establishment of an affiliate program for e-books is the latest attempt by Google to gain some traction for Google eBooks which trails rivals Amazon and Barnes & Noble in e-book sales.