To add or edit multiple books at a time, you can use spreadsheets. You can download a spreadsheet that's pre-filled with the information that you've already entered in the Partner Centre, adjust the settings and bibliographic information, and then upload your edited spreadsheet to apply the changes.
Download a spreadsheet
- Visit the 'Book catalogue' in your Partner Centre account.
- Click Advanced options.
- Download book list.
- Tick the box labelled 'Show metadata columns' to include bibliographic information and basic settings for your books.
Tip: By default, your spreadsheet contains information for all the books in your catalogue. If you want to generate a spreadsheet of a subset of your books, you should first filter your catalogue. The downloaded spreadsheet only includes the search results.
Download prices
If your books can be sold on Google Play, you can download prices along with the rest of your book data. To do so, tick the box labelled Show price columns.
You can also add prices. For example, you may wish to provide list prices in a new currency. Click the box labelled Add new prices to these books and specify the price type for the new price.
The price type is information about the price except for the list price:
- Currency
- Price type
- Fixed: Tick this box for countries or regions where you have specified that you are subject to fixed price laws.
- Includes tax: Tick this box if this price includes applicable tax.
To add multiple new prices, click Add another price to these books.
View and edit a spreadsheet
Open the file that you downloaded in a spreadsheet program (e.g. Microsoft Excel, OpenOffice Calc or LibreOffice Calc). If the spreadsheet looks strange, make sure that you specify that you're opening a Tab-delimited file using UTF-16 encoding.
You can edit the spreadsheet by adding or replacing values according to Google's formatting guidelines below. New books can be added by providing information in new rows.
You can also delete any columns that you won't be working on, and any data in those columns will be unchanged when you upload the spreadsheet. (Exceptions include the Identifier column, which is always required, and the Title column, which is required for new books being added via the spreadsheet.) Some columns only apply to books which can be sold on Google Play.
Columns in the spreadsheet (click to expand/collapse)- Some columns accept only a set of specific values. Check below to see the list of acceptable values for each column.
- If the column name includes additional information inside square brackets, format your data the same way, with the specified details in square brackets.
- Column headers and acceptable values may change. (For example, our system used to require headers and some values to be in English. They should now be provided in the local language.) We recommend using a newly downloaded version of your spreadsheet to ensure compatibility.
| Identifier | The primary ISBN or other identifier for the book. Required. Changing the value in this column will make any information in the row apply to a different book (and may create a new book record); the book with the old identifier will not be deleted from your account. |
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| Status (Do Not Modify) | Whether the book is available for preview and for sale and whether any actions are needed. This column is for information only. Any changes made in this column will be ignored when you upload the spreadsheet. |
| Label (Do Not Modify) | The name of the template with which the book was created. Note that any changes made in this column will not be reflected in your account when you upload the spreadsheet. There is no way to change labels for an existing book. |
| Play Store Link (Do Not Modify) | The URL for the book's page on Google Play (if the book is live on Google Play). Any changes made in this column will be ignored when you upload the spreadsheet. |
| Enable for Sale? | Whether the book will be sold on Google Play. (Note: Additional information, such as prices, is also required before a book becomes available for sale.) Acceptable values:
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| Title | The title of the book. Required if this book is being added to your account. |
| Subtitle | The subtitle of the book, if any. |
| Book Format | The format of the book. Acceptable values:
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| Related Identifier [Format, Relationship], Semicolon-Separated | The ISBN or identifier of other books related to this one. For example, if the electronic and print editions of a title have different ISBNs, you can specify the other edition in this column. Include the format of the related book, a comma, then its relationship to the current book, all within square brackets after the identifier. Separate multiple-related identifiers with semicolons. Examples:
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| Contributor [Role], Semicolon-Separated | Contributors to the book, such as the author, editor or illustrator. You must specify the role of each contributor in square brackets after the name. List multiple contributors by separating them with semi-colons. Example:
John Smith [Author]; Mary Jones [Editor]Acceptable values for the role:
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| Biographical Note | Biographical details about the contributors. Basic HTML is acceptable (but no hyperlinks). |
| Language | The primary language of the book. Use three-letter ISO 639-2/B codes. For example, enter eng for English. |
| Subject Code [Schema], Semicolon-Separated | The subject of the book. This should either be a code specified by one of our accepted subject schemas or the exact text description as described by the schema. The schema should be specified after each subject in square brackets. Subject codes may be provided for multiple schemas, separated by semi-colons. Example:
Gardening / Flowers / General [BISAC]; Gardening: flowers [BIC]Alternatively: GAR004000 [BISAC]; WMPC [BIC]Acceptable schemas: |
| Age Group, Comma-Separated | The age group of the audience for which this book is intended. List multiple age groups with commas. To specify adult audiences, enter 18+. Example:
13–17, 18+Some spreadsheet programs may try to treat age groups as calculations (e.g. '
13–17' as '13 minus 17'). To prevent this, you can include a comma at the end ('13–17,'). |
| Description | A description of the book, such as might be found on the back cover copy. Basic HTML is acceptable (but no hyperlinks). |
| Publication Date | The date of publication for the book in D:YYYY-MM-DD format, with YYYY-MM-DD representing the date. (The D: prefix is optional.)
Some spreadsheet programs will reformat dates. Please make sure that when you upload your spreadsheet, any information in this column follows the correct format.
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| Page Count | The number of pages in the book. |
| Series Name | The name of the series that the book belongs to, if any. |
| Volume in Series | If the book belongs to a series, the volume number of the book. |
| Preview Type | How much of the book can be previewed on Google Books. (This is different to the amount previewed in the Google Play Store.) A minimum of 20% should be set, with acceptable values incrementing by 10% (e.g. 30%, 40%, etc.). |
| Preview Territories | The countries where this book can be previewed on Google Books as comma-separated two-letter ISO 3166-1 codes. This list should include any countries where this book is enabled for sale. If you have worldwide rights, enter WORLD. You can exclude countries by listing them after WORLD, separated by commas and individually preceded by a minus sign (-). Examples:To indicate all territories except the US and Canada: WORLD,-CA,-USTo indicate Germany, Spain, France and Italy: DE,ES,FR,IT |
| Buy Link Text | The text of the link that points to your specified purchase page for this book. Usually this will be your company name or website name, such as 'Example Publishing' or 'Example Publisher Online'. |
| Buy Link | The URL of the specified purchase page for this book on your e-commerce site. Note that Google Books automatically links to popular book retailer sites; this link is to encourage visitors to your own page for this book. If you provided 'Example Publisher Online' as the buy link text above, and a buy link of http://www.examplepublishing.com/book/12345.html for this book, then a user clicking 'Example Publisher Online' would land on that particular web page. |
| Publisher Name | The name that you want displayed as the person, imprint or publisher who submitted this book to Google Books. |
| Publisher Website | The URL of your website, which viewers can reach by clicking on your publisher name. |
| Show Photos in Preview? | Whether to display photographs or illustrations in the preview of your book. Disable this option if you don't have the appropriate rights. If a book contains a significant number of images, we can sell it only if you indicate that we can show photos or if we receive an EPUB file. Acceptable values:
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| PDF download allowed? | Whether to allow Google Books users to download a full copy of your book as a PDF file. Acceptable values:
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| On Sale Date | The date that the book should become available for sale in D:YYYY-MM-DD format, with YYYY-MM-DD representing the date. (The D: prefix is optional.) If this is a future date and your book is enabled for sale, it will not be available for sale before this date.
Some spreadsheet programs will reformat dates. Please make sure that when you upload your spreadsheet, any information in this column follows the correct format.
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| DRM Enabled? | Whether to apply Digital Rights Management (DRM) software to the book when it's sold on Google Play. Acceptable values:
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| Show Photos in eBook? | Whether to display photographs or illustrations in the book when it's sold on Google Play. Disable this option if you don't have the appropriate rights. If a book contains a significant number of images, we can sell it only if this option is enabled or if we receive an EPUB file. Acceptable values:
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| Include Scanned Pages? | Whether to allow people who purchase the book on Google Play to view the PDF version, which includes the original layout. Acceptable values:
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| For Mature Audiences? | Whether this book contains mature content and is intended to be read by adults only. |
| Copy-Paste Percentage | How much of the book a buyer can copy and paste. Enter a number from 0 to 100 in increments of 10, or 5 (e.g. 0, 5, 10, 20, 30, etc.). |
Edit prices in a spreadsheet
If your books can be sold on Google Play, you can change, add or remove prices for your books in bulk using spreadsheets. To make sure that you're only supplying prices for books on Google Play (instead of preview-only books), filter your spreadsheet by checking for a value of Yes (or Y or +) in the Enable for Sale? column before modifying prices.
Decimal points for prices should follow convention for the language that the spreadsheet headers are in. For example, if the header is in German, our system will expect comma decimal marks (e.g. 3,00), whereas we'll expect decimal points for spreadsheets with English headers (e.g. 3.00).
Currency conversion
If currency conversion is enabled, you can configure which books and prices you'd like to convert in order to sell in other countries. In the spreadsheet you'll see two columns for each price: the first column contains the price as a numeric value and the second column lists the countries where that price will be applied. If any of the listed countries use a different currency from the currency specified for the price, the currency conversion tool will allow you to automatically convert your provided price into the target country's currency. See the section on changing the countries where a price applies for detailed instructions.
Add a price
To add a price that your books don't currently have, you will first need to download that price type in the spreadsheet so that you have the right price header to work with. After selecting Export books, tick the box labelled Add a price and specify the details of the price type you want to add.
Download and open the spreadsheet, fill out the values for that new price, and then re-upload the spreadsheet.
Delete a price
Download the prices that you want to delete following the instructions for downloading prices and open the spreadsheet. Wherever you see a value for the price, replace that value with two asterisks (**). The prices that have ** will be deleted when you upload the spreadsheet. Books without prices for a given territory cannot be sold there.
Change a price
To change a price, simply edit the numerical value in the appropriate column for the book.
Change the countries where a price applies
You may want to change the countries where your price applies for various reasons. You might have experienced a change in the rights for the book, or you might want to use an existing price for all worldwide sales once you've enabled currency conversion, as the example below illustrates. To change the countries where a price applies, follow these steps:
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Download the price that you want to change following the instructions for downloading prices and open the spreadsheet. There will be two columns for each list price: the price, then the countries where that price applies.
Identifier … USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price Countries for USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price 012345678 … 9.99 US Explanation of column headers in the example:
- Identifier: The identifier.
- USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price: The recommended retail price, tax-exclusive, in US dollars.
- Countries for USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price: The countries where the aforementioned price should be applied. For countries where the specified currency is not the local currency, currency conversion must be enabled for the price to apply there.
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Edit the list of countries using our formatting guidelines.
Identifier … USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price Countries for USD [Recommended Retail Price, Excluding Tax] Price 012345678 … 9.99 WORLD -
Save the spreadsheet, then return to the Partner Centre to submit it according to our uploading instructions.
Add books using a spreadsheet
You can add additional books to your account by entering their information in blank rows. (If you're not making any edits to existing books, you can delete those rows entirely.) Although we recommend that you provide as much information as possible, the minimum required columns include:
- Identifier (at this time, books without ISBNs cannot be added to your book catalogue using a spreadsheet; add these books directly in the Partner Centre interface)
- Title
When you upload your spreadsheet, these books will be added using the settings for your default template. You'll need to upload the book cover and content files separately. Learn more.
Upload a spreadsheet
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Once you've finished making changes to your spreadsheet, save it in one of our accepted formats:
* Our system will attempt to process other encodings, but using one of the listed encodings is strongly recommended.Accepted formats Accepted encodings* Accepted filename extensions - comma-separated
- tab-separated
- UTF-16
- UTF-8
- .csv
- .txt
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To return to the Partner Centre account, from the book catalogue, click Advanced options.
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Upload book list.
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Click Choose file and select your edited spreadsheet file from your computer.
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Click Upload.
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After the file has been uploaded, it may take some time before your changes are reflected in your account. You won't be directly notified of any errors in your spreadsheet. To determine whether your spreadsheet submission was successful, check your spreadsheet upload history.
View uploaded lists
Important: Some features in this section are only available in the Partner Centre's new version. To switch to the new version, at the top right, click Settings 
To check the status of your spreadsheet submission:
- Visit the book catalogue in your Partner Centre account.
- Click Advanced options.
- Select View uploaded lists. You'll find a list of your past uploads with timestamps, the user who uploaded the file, and the number of rows processed for each file.
- To download the uploaded file, click the file name.
Upload status types:
- Processing: A recent upload is still in process. Depending on the number of books and changes made, this can take up to a few hours. If the upload is in processing status for more than two hours, make sure that the file is in UTF-16 format, and try breaking the file up into multiple files containing a smaller number of books and re-upload. If the file is still in processing status after 12 hours, contact us.
- Complete: The upload of the file is complete and all the rows in the file were successfully processed.
- Complete with errors: The upload of the file is complete but at least one row wasn't successfully processed. Download the error details by clicking the error count in the 'Rows with errors' column.
- Cancelled: The upload was cancelled by a user of your Partner Centre account.
- Invalid: No rows were successfully processed.
You can filter your past uploads by status from the 'Status' column header. You can also search for any file name from the search bar at the top.
To view details of any errors, click the error counts in the 'Rows with errors' column. You'll be prompted to download a spreadsheet containing the specific error messages for your upload. The first column contains the identifier of the row with the error, and the second column contains the specific value that caused the error, along with an error message. For help with a specific error, search for words in the error message page in the Error messages article. Use this information to make corrections to your spreadsheet, then upload it again.