Templates (default book settings)

Important:

  • Google Play partners can sell ebooks and audiobooks in certain countries/regions. The features described here aren't available in every country/region.
    • Due to regulatory requirements, Google can't offer pre-orders in India. Your book will be available in the Google Play Store in India on the release date.
  • Pre-orders allow customers to order, but not read, your book before its release date. On the release date, customers who pre-ordered your book are charged for the purchase and they gain access to the book.
  • Before you upload any files, make sure your content meets Google's guidelines. If you plan to sell your books on Google Play, review our publisher content policies for books on Google Play.
  • Analytics charts and sales transaction reports use the date the customer placed the pre-order, so that you can measure customer anticipation level. Revenue shown in such orders isn't paid to you until the book is released. For a financial report that matches your payment, go to Google Play earnings reports.

Templates allow you to configure default settings for new books, saving you the effort of providing the same details for each book. For example, you can upload a publisher logo, and any books you add to your catalog with that template will automatically use that logo as well.

A default template with common settings is automatically generated when you create your account. The default template settings will be used whenever you add a book without specifying the template. If all your books share the same basic settings, a single template will probably be sufficient for your needs. You can also override template settings for individual books.

Changes to templates only affect new books and do not override settings for existing books, so you should configure your template before adding any books. If you need to make bulk changes to existing books, you can use a spreadsheet.

To view your templates, visit the Book Catalog in your Partner Center account. Click the Advanced options button, then select Manage templates. You'll see a list of your existing templates. Click the Edit link to view or change details.

General Settings

Template Name The name of this template.
Collection Code This collection code is automatically generated for new templates and cannot be edited. Use the collection code in ONIX feeds or when mailing books to Google for scanning.
Apply Defaults Automatically If this box is checked, new books will automatically be published once they have the required files and settings. Uncheck this box if you want to approve book settings manually in the interface, or by sending a metadata record via ONIX or spreadsheet.

Ebook Metadata and Settings

Metadata
Publisher Name The name of the publisher. This is publicly displayed on Google Books preview pages as "Pages displayed by permission of..."

Settings

The following distribution settings include options for selling your book on Google Play.

DRM Enabled Check this box if you wish to apply DRM (Digital Rights Management) to books sold on Google Play.
Show Photos in eBook Check this box if you have the rights to include images in your eBooks. If a book contains a significant number of images, Google can sell it only if this box is checked or if you provide an EPUB file.
Only Display Flowing Text From an ePub I Provided Google has converted selected books into EPUB format. Check this box if Google converted your books but you don't want to use Google's EPUB versions. (You can provide your own EPUB files regardless of this setting.)
Include Scanned Pages Check this box if you wish to sell your books in PDF format.
For mature audiences? Check this box if your books is intended for mature audiences only.
Copy / Paste Percentage Select the percentage of each book that can be copied and pasted by buyers.
 

The following Google Search preview settings allow you to control how your book is previewed on Google Books, which is similar to the way a visitor to a physical bookstore can browse through books on the shelves. If you sell books on your website, you can add links to your site for readers who want to buy the entire book.

Preview Type The percentage of the book that can be previewed. Options start at 20% and increase in increments of 10%.
Territories The countries where you have rights to make the books previewable. See our instructions for formatting a list of countries.
Buy Link Text The text of the link that's displayed on Google Books to buy books directly from you.
Buy Link The URL where Google Books users can buy the books directly from you. To point users to the specific purchase page, you may want to use a pattern that will auto-fill the ISBN in the URL.
Publisher Website The URL of the publisher's website. If provided, the publisher name and logo will link to this URL.
Publisher Logo An image of the publisher logo. See the guidelines for logos.
Preview Details Preview Details include two separate settings:
  • Show Photos in Preview. Check this box if you have the rights to display images in your books' previews.
  • PDF Download Allowed. Check this box if you want to make your books available for download as PDF files. This option only applies to books which are 100% previewable (according to the "Preview Type" setting).

Add a new template

If you need multiple templates, you can create a new one by clicking the Add a new template button while viewing the Manage Templates page.

You select a template when you add an individual book to your catalog, or when you download a template spreadsheet for adding new books in bulk. These books will inherit the template settings.

You can see which template was used for a given book by downloading a book list. To change the template applied to your existing books, contact us.

Need more help?

Try these next steps:

Want a quicker way to get help?

Chat with a member of the Google Books team.

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