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Import a Single Book

Single-title import lets you add any in-print book from Ingram's catalog to your Shopify store in seconds. The product is created fully populated — no manual data entry required.

What gets imported

When you import a book, Emersoft Books creates a Shopify product with:

  • Title and subtitle
  • Author(s)
  • Cover image
  • Description (from Ingram metadata)
  • ISBN-13 as both the SKU and barcode
  • Suggested retail price (in your store's currency)
  • Cost price (Ingram wholesale)
  • BISAC subject tags (with level prefix — see Product Tags & Metafields)
  • Publisher and publication date
  • Audience type
  • Awards and accolades (where available)

How to import a title

  1. Go to Apps > Emersoft Books in Shopify Admin.
  2. Search for the title you want — by name, author, or ISBN.
  3. Import in whichever way suits you:
  4. Click Add to store next to the title in the search results, or
  5. Click the title to open the Book Details overlay, then import from there.

The product is created in your Shopify catalog within a few seconds.

Importing multiple books at once

Tick the checkbox next to each title you want to import. A panel appears at the bottom of the screen showing your selected titles — click Import selected to add them all in one step. This is faster than importing one at a time when you have a list of titles to add.

See Bulk Import by ISBN if you have a spreadsheet of ISBNs — that is a better fit for importing large numbers of titles.

Importing on demand at the POS counter

When a customer asks for a book you don't currently stock or haven't yet imported, you can import and sell it on the spot. The product needs to exist in Shopify before it can be rung up — but importing through the app takes only a few seconds.

  1. In Apps > Emersoft Books, search for the title — typing the ISBN into the ISBN field returns an exact match immediately.
  2. Click Add to store to import the product.
  3. Open the new product in Shopify Admin > Products, set the status to Active, and add it to the Point of Sale sales channel.
  4. Ring up the sale through Shopify POS.

If the customer doesn't want to walk out with a copy from your shelf, you can have Ingram ship directly to them — the same product is already linked to Emersoft Books Fulfillment - Ingram, so an order routed to that location dispatches to Ingram automatically. See Ingram CDF Lite for fulfillment behavior.

Product tags & metafields

Every imported product gets Shopify tags for its BISAC subject classifications, plus a comprehensive set of metafields under the emersoft namespace — authors, series, audience, binding, language, dimensions, and much more. The app creates matching metafield definitions automatically. Tags and metafields can be used for Smart Collections, storefront filters, and theme customization.

See Product Tags & Metafields for the full reference, including the complete metafield list and examples of how to use them in your store.

After import

Making the book visible on your store

Books are imported as draft products and are not included in any sales channel by default. If you import a book and cannot see it in your store, this is why.

To make it visible:

  1. Open the product in Shopify Admin > Products.
  2. Change the status from Draft to Active.
  3. Under Sales channels, add it to your Online Store (and any other channels — TikTok Shop, POS, etc.).
  4. Click Save.

The product will now appear on your storefront.

Listing books you don't physically stock

By default, every book imported through the app is assigned to the Emersoft Books Fulfillment - Ingram location and ships from Ingram when ordered. You don't need to maintain stock counts on these titles or do any extra setup — list them, set them Active, add them to Online Store, and Ingram fulfills any orders that come in. This is the standard workflow for expanding your online catalog beyond what you carry in your physical shop.

If you also stock a title physically, add your shop's location to the product as well — see [Flexible fulfillment routing](../getting-started/first-steps.md#flexible-fulfillment-routing) for how to set the priority between your own stock and Ingram.

Tip

If you are importing many books at once, use Bulk Import — you can activate and assign sales channels to all products in a batch rather than one at a time.

Once published, the product behaves like any other Shopify product. You can:

  • Edit the description, tags, or pricing
  • Add it to collections
  • Adjust the sales channels it appears on

Books are imported with tax enabled by default

Shopify's Charge tax setting is checked on every product the app creates. If books are tax-exempt in your region, you will need to uncheck this manually on each product after a single import.

For bulk imports, the Emersoft team can disable tax on all products in the job — let them know during onboarding or when setting up a bulk import.

The product remains linked to Ingram's metadata feed. Price, description, and cover image will update automatically when Ingram's data changes — unless you have edited those fields manually.

Price, description, and cover image updates from Ingram's feed are applied automatically, unless you have edited those fields manually — in that case, your manual values are preserved.

Pre-order titles

When you import a title that has a future publication date, the app automatically sets the Pre-order metafield (emersoft.is_preorder) to true on the Shopify product variant. This is checked at the time of import based on the publication date in Ingram's data.

This metafield is useful in several ways:

  • Filter pre-orders in your admin — search your Shopify products by this metafield to see all pre-orders at a glance
  • Create Smart Collections for pre-orders — set up a collection that automatically includes all products where Pre-order is true. You can combine conditions, for example: pre-orders in a specific BISAC subject, or pre-orders by a particular author
  • Storefront customization — use the metafield value in your theme to display a "Pre-order" badge or label on product pages for upcoming titles

Ingram accepts backorders on upcoming titles — customers can purchase a pre-order immediately and Ingram ships as soon as the book is available.

How a pre-order ships — particularly when an order contains multiple pre-orders with different release dates — depends on the Order Type configured for your store and the order's cancel date. See Order Types & Pre-orders for the full behavior.

Pre-order stock shows as zero

Until the publication date, Ingram's stock count for a pre-order title is zero. If the product shows as "Sold Out" on your storefront, you need to enable Continue selling when out of stock on the product in Shopify Admin. Without this, customers will not be able to add the pre-order to their cart.

To enable it: open the product in **Shopify Admin > Products**, scroll to the **Inventory** section, and tick **Continue selling when out of stock**.

When the publication date arrives, the pre-order metafield is cleared automatically by a Shopify Flow workflow installed during your onboarding session. The product becomes available for standard fulfillment and any pending pre-orders are eligible to ship. Contact the Emersoft team if you are unsure whether this workflow is set up on your store.

Plan limits

Plan Single-title import
Author / Starter Up to 20 books in your store
Digital Bookseller / Growth Unlimited
Omnichannel Pro Unlimited

If you are on the Starter plan and have reached your 20-book limit, you will see a message indicating the limit has been reached. See Plans & Pricing for options.

Looking for a faster way to import many books at once?

Use Bulk Import to upload a CSV of ISBNs and import hundreds or thousands of titles in a single job.