What is the Random House Book View Widget?Primarily this is a viewer that allows a user to open one of our titles and read a sample of the book online. For example
My Sister Jodie by Jacqueline Wilson. In addition to being able to read sample content from the books the viewer also contains
- Basic bibliographic information on the title.
- Related titles recommendations
- A send to a friend function
- Add to my Site control
- Search the content of the book
- A configurable 'Buy' button
Why might I want this on my site?
A multitude of reasons that might be appealing including.
- Enrich your site: Adding this feature to your site and letting your users 'try before they buy' enriches the experience they have on your site and adds to the credibility of your site as a great destination to explore books.
- Sell more books: In addition it drives revenue. Offering the facility on your product page can cause an uplift in conversion to sale.
- Satisfied customers: Customers who have purchased, having been able to browse the book in advance online, are also significantly more likely to be satisfied with their purchase.
- If retail isn't your focus but you blog about, or occasionally feature or review books actually being able to show your visitors part of that book can add depth to your site.
- Affiliate income: Additionally if you participate in any affiliate schemes you can configure the viewer to direct the buy button through to whichever retailer you choose and effectively use the viewer as a catalyst for commission.
What titles are available?
There are thousands of Random House titles that have these book viewing widgets available. By the end of 2008 we expect this to be up to 5,000, with a widget available for the vast majority of all new publishing frequently weeks ahead of publication date to support pre-order sales activity.
There are two ways to check for a specific title, manually by searching for that title or ISBN on www.rbooks.co.uk and automatically by using the widget availability web service which is covered in the implementation documents.
How would I be required to present these viewers on my site?
Pretty much up to you. If you are running a blog or small site you may wish to add the small scale viewer to your site as has been done here.
Alternatively you may wish to develop a graphic to alert your users that this feature exists that, when clicked on, opens up the larger viewer. For example as you can on the rbooks site on product pages and search results we've used the phrase 'open the book' placed a graphic over the jacket which when clicked on opens the widget. How you seek to badge brand and get this feature over to your users is up to you, feel free to ours if inspiration fails to strike.
Customising the viewer itself
A number of aspects are configurable.
- Colour: Can be altered to most closely match your sites palette.
- Buy button: Can be configured to point wherever you choose. If you are retailing point to your own basket, if you do not have a shopping process you can point to whichever retailer you wish with your affiliate code if you participate.
- Tabs: If you wish to you can choose to show all/some/none of the tabs in the widget, none are mandatory.
How much does it cost?
Nothing. It's free.
I have an affiliate program can I use this as part of it?
Yes. Feel free to distribute this to your affiliate network directly or simply allow people to pick the viewer up from your site.
How do I get these viewers on my site?
Basically two methods manual or programmatic:
Manual - If you're a blogger or site holder that just wants to show a single or small number of viewers on your site the easiest method is to
- Find the widget you want via www.rbooks.co.uk
- Click on the 'plus' tab
- Tailor the widget to the size, colour and buy link as appropriate
- Copy the code snippet
- Paste into your site
Programmatic - Alternatively you can call our web service, as regularly as you deem appropriate, which will return you an xml file which will tell you all the ISBNs for which a widget is available and the link for each. You can then use this information to display an 'open the book' graphic (or your alternative) in your search results and product pages appropriately.
Full details of how to do this are contained in the implementation documents (PDF)
I have further questions business or technical
Please contact sitefeedback@rbooks.co.uk