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Started as a journal publisher in 1967, the Museum Tusculanum Press has operated as a book publishing house at the University of Copenhagen since 1975. Today it is one of Denmark's most international publishers: its catalogue consists of almost 40% foreign books - published in 24 languages - and covers academic journals, scholarly monographs, dissertations, and textbooks in the humanities and social sciences. The publishing house broke new ground six years ago in Denmark by starting its own platform to promote e-books and multimedia projects.

Challenge

Given the international nature of its titles, the Museum Tusculanum Press has long engaged in traditional marketing schemes to gain visibility for its books via book catalogues, international websites and distributors, and book fairs.

However, the niche nature of its titles - from cultural criticism to medieval history, books written in the Tuareg language to works about the Inuits' use of the Internet - has meant that the publishing house must create a very different marketing plan for each book. "Our customers are all over the world. We have to market to different institutes for every single book," explains Managing Director, Dr. Marianne Alenius.

Solution

Museum Tusculanum Press has long been an innovator in the Danish publishing world - from its radical beginnings as a cutting-edge classicist journal publisher in the 60s, to its creation of e-books and multimedia projects to supplement their printed book line.

Google Books therefore struck the publisher as a natural fit and supplement to their online strategy. When it began participating in the Partner Programme nearly two years ago, the publishing house initially committed 200 books, then expanded to include its full catalogue of 1,000 titles.

"We clearly felt a development in international sales after Google Books," says Alenius. The company also plans to use Google Analytics on their own website in order to track referrals coming from Book Search and other websites.

In fact, the power of Book Search in encouraging book sales can be seen across the disciplines covered by the publisher. For example, roughly five percent of readers have clicked on the "Buy this Book" link for Comics Culture; Cassiodorus, Jordanes, and the History of the Goths; and The Tuaregs (about a nomadic North African tribe).

A book like The Psychology of Art Appreciation, for example, could prove difficult to find via traditional, catalogue classification schemes given that it references two very different fields. In Book Search, however, more than 450 people - using several possible search terms, from "psychology and art" to "psychological aesthetics of Madonna" - have discovered this book, illustrating, as Alenius says, "the possibility of finding a book that you weren't actually looking for, because you did not know of its existence."

Indeed, Alenius sees the power to search across the entire text as a powerful new tool to discover books. "We've seen an increase in backlist sales that we haven't seen on our own website - old titles that we haven't sold for several years."

In fact, 99% of the publisher's books have been viewed on Book Search since the publisher joined the programme, and 58% have experienced clicks on "Buy This Book".

The programme has also been embraced by the publishers' authors, who are primarily academics. "It's had a great effect. This is giving them new exposure and the chance for more readers and citations," says Alenius.

About Google Books

Google Books enables publishers to promote their books on Google. Google scans the full text of participating publishers' titles so that Google users can see books that match the topics they are searching on. When users click on a book search result, they're taken to a Google-hosted web page displaying a scanned image of the relevant page from the book. Each page also contains multiple "Buy this Book" links, which enable users to purchase the book from online retailers. Users may also see contextually targeted Google AdWords ads on these pages. Publishers will receive a share of the revenue generated from ads appearing on their content.