Book

Book actions make Google Search an entry point for discovering books and authors, enabling Search users to quickly buy the books that they find directly from Search results. As a provider of e-books, you can provide a feed of data to Google using the structured data schema below.

To ensure robust coverage and better serve our users, this feature is currently open to book providers that have broad book availability. If you would like to participate, register your interest in our form. Indicating interest in this feature does not guarantee participation.

Use cases

The user’s query can indicate an intent to find a book, such as a book title, like The Catcher in the Rye, or the books of J.D. Salinger. For relevant queries, we might show a Knowledge Graph card for the book. Read more about managing your Knowledge Graph data. Read actions, which are incorporated into the cards, display options for acquiring the book. Through links you provide, read actions send users directly from the Knowledge Graph card to a book page on your site or app.

<script type="application/ld+json"> { "@context":"http://schema.org", "@type":"Book", "name" : "The Catcher in the Rye", "author": { "@type":"Person", "name":"J.D. Salinger" }, "url" : "http://www.barnesandnoble.com/store/info/offer/JDSalinger", "workExample" : [{ "@type": "Book", "isbn": "031676948", "bookEdition": "2nd Edition", "bookFormat": "http://schema.org/Hardcover", "potentialAction":{ "@type":"ReadAction", "target": { "@type":"EntryPoint", "urlTemplate":"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/store/info/offer/0316769487?purchase=true", "actionPlatform":[ "http://schema.org/DesktopWebPlatform", "http://schema.org/IOSPlatform", "http://schema.org/AndroidPlatform" ] }, "expectsAcceptanceOf":{ "@type":"Offer", "Price":6.99, "priceCurrency":"USD", "eligibleRegion" : { "@type":"Country", "name":"US" }, "availability": "http://schema.org/InStock" } } },{ "@type": "Book", "isbn": "031676947", "bookEdition": "1st Edition", "bookFormat": "http://schema.org/EBook", "potentialAction":{ "@type":"ReadAction", "target": { "@type":"EntryPoint", "urlTemplate":"http://www.barnesandnoble.com/store/info/offer/031676947?purchase=true", "actionPlatform":[ "http://schema.org/DesktopWebPlatform", "http://schema.org/IOSPlatform", "http://schema.org/AndroidPlatform" ] }, "expectsAcceptanceOf":{ "@type":"Offer", "Price":1.99, "priceCurrency":"USD", "eligibleRegion" : { "@type":"Country", "name":"UK" }, "availability": "http://schema.org/InStock" } } }] } </script>

Guidelines

In addition to the general structured data guidelines, follow these guidelines specific to books and read actions:

• Provide structured data about your book content, including relevant descriptions and links to consume the book content.
• The links you provide should be canonical URLs leading directly to updated information for the book title.
• Upon clicking a read action link, your user should be sent to a page that directly supports the acquisition of the book.
• Read action links should not lead to any page that requires subsequent clicks to acquire the content or view more details, such as a search results page or product summary page.

Type definitions

Book properties

The following properties should be defined for every book in the your site. The sub-properties correspond to fields in the first table.

Book properties
@id	URL, recommended Globally unique ID of the work in the a URL format. The ID should be stable and not change over time. The URL is treated as an opaque string and does not have to resolve to an actual web page.
name	Text, required The title of the book. If you provide multiple editions, our algorithms select the title based on the most frequent occurrence of a title in Search results over time.
author	Person, required The author(s) of the book. For each author you provide, you must provide a specific Person entity. See Person properties below.
workExample	Book, required The editions of this book. See sub-properties for workExample below.
url	URL, required URL to the page on your site about the book. The page may list all available editions.
sameAs	URL, recommended A reference page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity; for example, the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website.

Tome properties

Either a specific edition of the written work, or the volume of the work.

Tome properties
@id	URL, recommended Globally unique ID of the tome in the form of a URL. The ID should be stable and not change over time. It should also be distinct from the ID used for the book. The URL is treated as an opaque string and does not have to be a working link.
bookEdition	Text, optional The edition of the book.
bookFormat	BookFormatType, required The format of the book: EBook, Hardcover, Paperback, AudioBook.
isbn	Text, required The ISBN of the tome. Use the ISBN of the print book instead if there is no ISBN for that edition, such as for a Kindle edition.
name	Text, recommended* The title of the tome. Use for the title of the tome if it differs from the book. *Optional when tome has the same title as the book.
author	Person, recommended* The author(s) of the tome. Use if the author(s) of the tome differ from the related book. Provide one Person entity per author. *Optional when the tome has the same set of authors as the book.
potentialAction	ReadAction, required Read action(s) for the book.
url	URL, recommended URL specific to this edition if one exists.
sameAs	URL, recommended A reference page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity; for example, the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website.
datePublished	Date, recommended Date of first publication of this tome.

Person properties

Google uses the Person type for the author.

Person properties
name	Text, required The name of the person.
sameAs	URL, optional A reference page that unambiguously indicates the item's identity; for example, the URL of the item's Wikipedia page, Freebase page, or official website.

Read action properties

ReadAction properties determine both the target for the content as well as the conditions in which the action can occur, such as purchase of the content before reading can begin.

Read action properties
target	EntryPoint, required A container for the action target.
expectsAcceptanceOf	Offer, required A container for the action conditions.

EntryPoint properties

The EntryPoint serves as the mechanism for you to provide the links to your books, where these links can be further refined by the type of platform they intend to serve.

EntryPoint properties
urlTemplate	URL, required Link(s) to content. See here for the proper deep link format for each platform.
actionPlatform	Text, required The platform(s) on which the link works. One or more of the following: http://schema.org/DesktopWebPlatform: Works on desktop web browsers. http://schema.org/MobileWebPlatform: Works on mobile web browsers. http://schema.org/AndroidPlatform: Works on Android native app. http://schema.org/IOSPlatform: Works on iOS native app. This property can be omitted for deep links with a custom Android scheme.

Offer properties

Offer applies to a BuyAction, which is one subset of a ReadAction. It defines the terms and conditions for purchase.

Offer properties
@id	URL, recommended Globally unique ID of the offer.
price	Number, required The offer price of a product, currency will be appointed in priceCurrency property.
priceCurrency	Text, required The currency (in 3-letter ISO 4217 format).
eligibleRegion	Country, optional Countries in which the offer is valid.
ineligibleRegion	Country, optional Countries which the offer is not valid (may override eligible regions if one country appears in both eligible region set and ineligible region set).
availability	ItemAvailability, optional The availability of this item; for example, InStock, OutOfStock, or PreOrder.

Country properties

This subset of Offer defines the two-letter country code where the Offer is eligible.

Country Properties
name	Text, required The name of the country, in compliance with the alpha-2 3166 standard.