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Book Preview

Book Preview adds a Preview button to your product pages. Customers click it to read the opening pages of the book without leaving your store.

Previews come from Jellybooks, a third-party book preview service. Jellybooks provides excerpts for a wide range of titles, and Emersoft Books adds the preview to every book in your store that has one.

Available on all plans, for both Ingram (US) and Gardners (UK) stores.

What customers see

  • A Preview button on the product page, in the position you choose in the theme editor.
  • Clicking it opens the preview in a window on top of the product page. On mobile, the window fills the screen.
  • The customer closes the window to return to the product page.

The button appears only on books that have a preview. On every other product — books without a preview, and non-book products — nothing is shown, so you can add the block to your product template without affecting them.

Turn on Book Preview

Book Preview is a Shopify app block that you add to your product template.

  1. In Shopify Admin, go to Apps > Emersoft Books > Settings > Product Page.
  2. Click Add Book Preview to your theme. The theme editor opens with the Book Preview block already added to your product template.
  3. Drag the block to where you want the button — for example, below the Add to cart button.
  4. Click Save.

Adding the block manually

  1. In Shopify Admin, go to Online Store > Themes.
  2. Click Customize on your active theme.
  3. Navigate to a product page template.
  4. Click Add block in the product information section.
  5. Find Book Preview in the app blocks list.
  6. Drag it to the position you want and click Save.

Blocks are set per theme

The block belongs to the theme, not your store. If you publish a different theme, add Book Preview to that theme too.

Block settings

With the Book Preview block selected in the theme editor, you can set:

  • Button text — the label on the button (Preview by default). For example, "Read a sample".
  • Button background color and Button text color — optional. Leave them empty to use your theme's own button style.

Turning it off

Remove the Book Preview block from your product template in the theme editor and click Save. If you uninstall Emersoft Books, Shopify removes the block automatically.

Which books get a preview

  • Emersoft Books checks Jellybooks once a day and adds a preview to each book in your store whose ISBN has one — including books you imported through the app and books linked to your provider's catalog.
  • New books can take up to 24 hours to get a preview. Books you import today get their preview after the next daily update.
  • If Jellybooks withdraws a preview, the app removes it from the product and the button disappears.
  • A product with several editions shows one Preview button for the product.

Not every book has a preview. Whether a title has one depends on Jellybooks and the publisher, not on Emersoft Books.

The preview link is stored in the emersoft.preview_url product metafield (Book Preview URL). The block reads it automatically, but you can also use it in your own theme code. See Product Tags & Metafields.