Paul Manning, vice president of book publishing for Springer, on the benefits of online marketing for older titles.

By Peter Beisser

Springer Science + Business Media does not view Google Book Search as a detriment to its business, but rather as a valuable marketing tool for its popular science, technology and medical (STM) titles.

Paul Manning, vice president of book publishing for Springer, attributes much of the recent growth of the company’s back catalog of older titles to its participation with the controversial program. With more than 30,000 titles available in Google Book Search, the publisher saw more than 1 million views in a one-month period, and 20 percent of its “buy this book” clicks on the search were for titles older than 10 years old, he says. Manning, 42, talks about the advantages of using Book Search and viral marketing to boost future book sales.