Launching "Discover" and Google Play Editorial 📚

After Oyster was acquired by Google in 2015, I joined Google Play Books as a product marketer, merchandiser, and creative producer. The team's first order of business: reinvent the Google Play Books app to give readers a reason to use it over other ebook reading options in the field.

As a product and content strategist, copywriter, program manager, and managing editor, I helped launch the new Discover experience inside the Google Play Books app, filled with original, exclusive content under the brand, Google Play Editorial.

As with any creative role at Google, it's all driven by clear strategy and informed by data. So, I set our acquisition, retention, and engagement goals, tracked performance, and tweaked our editorial strategy as we learned more about what worked for our audience.

Goal: Increase engagement and retention, measured by monthly active users

Results: Launched Discover in 75 countries, featuring exclusive content from Google Play Editorial which gave readers a reason to come back to the app—even if they're between books. We saw MAUs increase by ~10%.

Goal: Acquire new users with a $0 marketing budget

Results: We created Google Play Editorial content in collaboration with publishing partners and authors (with pretty large followings). By aligning a big chunk of our content with their publishing priorities, our interviews and reviews were amplified across their free and paid channels, so we were reaching new users outside of the app without spending anything. This means Google Play Books started growing the audience month over month consistently, whereas readership had been stagnant before we launched these features.

Samples of content about Discover and Google Play Editorial. I wrote, co-wrote, or edited all these pieces.

See even more interviews and writing here. These web links don't exist anymore, so I link to google docs with the content. Links to my favorite interviews are below the images.