By Dom Elliott, Google Play team

With more than 50 billion apps and games downloaded in total, Google Play is helping developers and content creators around the world build successful businesses. In fact, we paid out more than $5 billion over the last year to developers for creating incredible apps that are changing the way people communicate, live, work, and play.

Developing an app or game and distributing it on Google Play is a good start, but it’s only the first step to building a sustainable business. That’s why we’ve written “The Secrets to App Success on Google Play,” a detailed playbook on the best practices and tools you can use to maximize the reach, retention, and revenue of your new app.

The guide is separated into the following sections:

Publishing on Google Play — using the Google Play Developer Console to distribute your app to over 1 billion Android users worldwide.

— using the Google Play Developer Console to distribute your app to over 1 billion Android users worldwide. Quality — The fundamentals of building a great app and an insight into the Google Play guidelines and policies.

— The fundamentals of building a great app and an insight into the Google Play guidelines and policies. Discoverability & reach — Maximizing your app's discoverability and reaching the widest audience possible.

— Maximizing your app's discoverability and reaching the widest audience possible. Engagement & retention — Converting installations into active users and improving user retention.

— Converting installations into active users and improving user retention. Monetization — Monetization strategies to generate ongoing, growing revenue streams.

— Monetization strategies to generate ongoing, growing revenue streams. Measurement with Google Analytics — Understanding your users and improving your app experience, conversions, and marketing.

— Understanding your users and improving your app experience, conversions, and marketing. Going global — Launching your app in local markets around the world.

Download the guide now in English (PDF, 11MB) or get it on Google Play. We’ll release the guide in more languages in the coming months. If you’re in the US or the UK, we also have a limited number of printed copies that we are offering to send for free. Request a printed copy here.

Once you’ve checked out the guide, we’d love to hear your feedback so we can continue to improve, let us know what you think.