murder.booklocker.com

When Nolan Lewis (Clouds Are Always White on Top - Flying the Box the B-17 Flying Fortress Came in) posted about Google Book Search on the Chicago Writers Association forum, he gave us this link to see what his book looked like.

I thought I’d summarize the good things I found there. First, off to the right there’s a box that lists five places to “buy this book.” There’s even a link for “Borrow this book” that will let you “Find this book in a library.”

Second, at the bottom of the page is a map with pins for the places mentioned in the book. Clicking on a pin pops up an excerpt from the book! For a book like Nolan’s this is really great since there are at least thirty pins. Below the map, three towns have been pulled out for featuring.

Third, you can search inside Nolan’s book. How cool is that?

Ah me.

I took the tour at Google UK. I was impressed so I signed up, which was easy. If you’re wondering, they give you a choice of four views: Full View, Limited Preview, Snippet View, and No Preview Available. I chose Limited View; Nolan and his publisher had gone with Full View.

Like I said, that was the easy part. Getting the files to Google took a bit of doing, though. First off, I didn’t have a photo handy of just the back cover of my book. It’s sort of funny when you think about. Nobody has ever asked me for a copy of it before! So, I took the original artwork, created a front cover file, a backcover file, renamed the .pdf with the innards of the book, and uploaded it all to Google.

Now I’m waiting for it to be processed. As soon as it’s up, I’ll let you know.

UPDATE: Fellow CWAer Helen Gallagher just posted the link to her book, Computer Ease, on Google Book Search.