Google Books Scraper — Books, ISBN & Prices

Search the entire Google Books catalogue by title, author, publisher, subject or ISBN — and get metadata plus the fields Open Library can't: Google's ratings, previews and sale info (price + buy link). Uses the official Google Books API with your own free key.

Perfect for book catalogs, price research, reading and library apps, ISBN enrichment, or datasets.

What you get

Per volume:

• Identity — title, subtitle, authors, publisher, publishedDate, language
• IDs — id (Google volume ID), isbn10, isbn13
• Details — description, pageCount, printType, categories, maturityRating
• Ratings — averageRating, ratingsCount (Google's own)
• Sale info — saleability, listPrice, retailPrice (amount + currency), buyLink
• Media / links — thumbnail, previewLink, infoLink

Modes

• Search — pass a query using Books operators: intitle:, inauthor:, inpublisher:, subject:, isbn:. Filter by orderBy, printType, langRestrict, country.
• Volume lookup — pass volumeIds to fetch specific volumes directly.

Input

Field	Type	Default	Description
apiKey	string (secret)	— (required)	Your Google API key with the Books API enabled
query	string	—	Books query, e.g. intitle:clean code, isbn:9780132350884
volumeIds	array	—	Specific Google Books volume IDs
orderBy	string	relevance	relevance or newest
printType	string	all	all, books or magazines
langRestrict	string	—	Restrict to a language code (en, ro, fr)
country	string	US	ISO country code — affects sale info / availability
maxResults	integer	100	Cap on volumes (paged in batches of 40)

Provide at least one of query or volumeIds.

Example input

{
  "query": "inauthor:asimov",
  "orderBy": "relevance",
  "maxResults": 50,
  "apiKey": "<YOUR_KEY>"
}

ISBN lookup:

{ "query": "isbn:9780132350884", "apiKey": "<YOUR_KEY>" }

Example output (one volume)

{
  "id": "hjEFCAAAQBAJ",
  "title": "Clean Code",
  "subtitle": "A Handbook of Agile Software Craftsmanship",
  "authors": ["Robert C. Martin"],
  "publisher": "Pearson Education",
  "publishedDate": "2008-08-01",
  "description": "Even bad code can function...",
  "isbn10": "0132350882",
  "isbn13": "9780132350884",
  "pageCount": 464,
  "printType": "BOOK",
  "categories": ["Computers"],
  "averageRating": 4.5,
  "ratingsCount": 210,
  "maturityRating": "NOT_MATURE",
  "language": "en",
  "thumbnail": "http://books.google.com/books/content?id=hjEFCAAAQBAJ&...",
  "previewLink": "http://books.google.com/books?id=hjEFCAAAQBAJ&...",
  "infoLink": "https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hjEFCAAAQBAJ",
  "saleability": "FOR_SALE",
  "listPrice": "35.99 USD",
  "retailPrice": "29.99 USD",
  "buyLink": "https://play.google.com/store/books/details?id=hjEFCAAAQBAJ&rdid=..."
}

Why this actor

• Prices, previews and ratings — the fields keyless book catalogs (like Open Library) don't carry.
• Country-aware sale info — set country to get the saleability and pricing for that market.
• Query operators + direct lookups — search by title/author/subject/ISBN, or pull exact volume IDs.
• Reliable — 503/429 backoff, batched paging up to your cap.

Notes

• Bring your own key (required): create a free API key in the Google Cloud Console and enable the Books API on its project. Set it as apiKey (stored as a secret). If no key is provided the actor exits immediately with a clear message. Never hardcode a private key in a public task example — use <YOUR_KEY>.
• listPrice / retailPrice / buyLink are only present for saleable volumes in the requested country.
• Not affiliated with or endorsed by Google.

Pricing

Pay per result — $2.00 per 1,000 results. No subscription or platform fees; you only pay for the results you get.

Related actors

• Open Library Scraper — keyless books + ISBN lookups (no prices).
• CrossRef Scraper — scholarly works and citations.
• arXiv Scraper — preprint metadata.