Between the Lines

Larry Dignan, Andrew Nusca and Rachel King

Google eBooks expands to include affiliates program

By | June 16, 2011, 11:57am PDT

Summary: In other digital books news, Google eBooks is expanding its features and reach with the launch of a new affiliates program.

In other digital books news, Google eBooks is expanding its features and reach with the launch of a new affiliates program.

The Google eBooks affiliates program kicks off today. Retailers, bloggers, book publishers and other website owners are welcome to participate and join the Google Affiliate Network (GAN).

So far, the only official affiliate has been the popular reading social network, GoodReads, which has already been linking to the Google eBookstore since December.

For those who want to join the GAN, there are a few extra steps involved beyond just filling out an application, including signing up for a Google AdSense account and wait for approval to join, which can take up to a few days.

Once part of the network, affiliates can get links to all available Google eBook titles (which is apparently hundreds of thousands). The incentive is that affiliates will get a commission for all sales referrals. Participants can also narrow down the genres of eBooks or even just specific titles they want listed on their sites using Google APIs or linking by ISBN.

Google would seem to be a bit late to the affiliate game, but the e-book effort comes as Amazon has been cutting affiliates as states push the e-tailer to collect taxes.

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Rachel King is a staff writer for ZDNet based in San Francisco.

Disclosure

Rachel King

Rachel King has no business relationships, affiliations, investments, or other potential conflicts of interest relating to the content posted in this blog.

Biography

Rachel King

Rachel King is a staff writer for CBS Interactive in San Francisco. Before serving as a contributing editor at ZDNet in New York City for two years, she previously worked for The Business Insider, FastCompany.com, CNN's San Francisco bureau and the U.S. Department of State. Rachel has also written for MainStreet.com, Irish America Magazine and the New York Daily News, among others. Rachel has a B.A. in Mass Communications and History from the University of California, Berkeley and a M.S. in Journalism from Columbia University, where she served as art director for the student magazine, Plated.

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