Authors sabatoge a great marketing opportunity

A lot of authors are upset about Google’s initiative to scan all the books in five major libraries, making the books searchable through the Google engine. The massive overreactions forced Google to temporarily halt its project while it gets permission from authors of copyrighted works first.

At first glance, the plan does seem bad for authors. Authors think that their books will be free on the Internet, and they won’t sell any more copies. And it seems pretty clear that Google's plan is a copyright infringement.

But if authors think past their initial reactions, however, they’d see that Google’s project will boost, not hamper, book sales.

It’s not like a Google user will be able to search for “The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People” and read Stephen Covey’s entire book. Instead, Google will bring up limited results from within books based on the user’s search.

What this will do for authors is open their works up to a much larger audience. If a user likes the limited portion of a book she reads, she a lot more likely to buy the whole thing. And she likely would have never been aware of the book without Google.

Amazon does the same thing now, with permission, through it’s searchable books feature. If I were an author, I’d be thrilled that Google wanted to get my work in front of their enormous audience. Most authors, however, don't see it that way. Too bad for them.