there is a story behind every book

Jellybooks DISCOVERY Service for Bookshops

The innovative new Jellybooks DISCOVERY platform offers Independent and chain booksellers an exciting new opportunity to improve reader engagement and book discovery with links to sample chapters, book excerpts and audiobook snippets.

The preview links and web modals, which work like Amazon’s “look inside” feature, are ideal for bookstores wishing to enhance their online shop and web presence. They can also be used in email newsletters and social media marketing. There is also a QR code feature for use in-store and at point of sale.

The QR-based version can be used in-store and in window displays as part of promotional posters, bookmarks, stickers on book covers. DISCOVERY can thus also be used by bookshops with no web shop or e-commerce facility, stimulating reader engagement and driving traffic back to the store.

The tool can be tailored to the needs of each bookshop and supports a range of purchase paths such as buy-now, click and collect, and reserve for future purchase. Store details such as opening hours can also be added. The goal is to always drive the customer back to the individual store or retailer.

The platform was developed by Jellybooks in partnership with Blackwell’s and with financial support from Innovate UK, the UK’s Innovation agency. The aim of the UK government in funding this initiative through Innovate UK is to strengthen the UK high street, support bookshops and create a more diverse ecosystem for book buying.

The service supports books across a range of formats including narrative, illustrated and audio titles. It has been designed with accessibility in mind to ensure no reader is left behind.

The service is easy to use, organic and a proven way of boosting sales for bookshops.

free sign-up

The service is paid for by publishers and the UK government. It is free to all non-publisher booksellers. Publishers looking for more information should go here.

Top Ten Benefits of the Jellybooks DISCOVERY platform for Booksellers:

  1. Boost Your Book Sales
    Product pages with book samples, excerpts or snippets for readers to browse and look inside a book online generate higher sales than product pages without samples.
  2. Best-in Class Digital Tools
    The DISCOVERY service is designed to give independent bookshops high-quality discovery tools for customers to rival online retailers.
  3. Stay in Control of your Customer Relationship
    The DISCOVERY service is designed to ensure readers buy from the bookshop where they opened the excerpt or snippet. The reader is not directed to a third-party intermediary. Bookshops stay in control of the customer relationship at all times!
  4. Online samples can successfully support print sales
    Amazon uses its “look inside” feature with great success to sell printed books. The ability for readers to get a feel for a book, before buying, is often an important element in the decision to buy.
  5. Build Deeper Reader Relationships
    Jellybooks DISCOVERY is ideal for enhancing email newsletters and social media posts. Use the service to showcase and recommend titles to customers and get them hooked with samples! The customisable buy button at the end of the preview will always direct them back to your shop.
  6. Click and Collect
    Supports click and collect as well as reserve and collect in-store through links at the end of the preview.
  7. Promote advance purchases
    DISCOVER can also support advance purchases. Customers can use the contact facility at the end of the preview to email you with a request to pre-order and pick up in-store or be directed to an online pre-order page.
  8. Multi Format
    The platform supports multiple formats including narrative, illustrated and audio titles using industry standard reading formats.
  9. Easy-to use and accessible
    DISCOVERY is based on the Jellybooks Cloud Reader, which offers one-click-and-read access to books. Built for speed, it is designed for exploring content with ease.
  10. It’s free
    There is no cost to bookshops! It’s paid by for publishers with initial support from the UK government.

Features and Benefits of the DISCOVERY Service for Retailers

  • Try before you buy – consumers can sample content before making a purchase.
  • One-click access to sample chapters, excerpts and snippets.
  • Accessible on any browser-enabled device such as smartphones, tablets, PCs, laptops, Internet kiosks and similar.
  • Instant and personal access, similar to playing a YouTube video where play starts instantly with no files to download, no app to install, no verification required.
  • All the accessibility and user benefits of reflowable ePUB text including variable fonts and night/day mode, without the drawbacks of static PDF and HTML based excerpts and snippets.
  • Browser-based reading system that leverages the Jellybooks Cloud Reader.
  • Supports narrative books (reflowable ePUB), illustrated books (fixed layout ePUB) and audiobooks (MP3).

Marketing Benefits of Jellybooks DISCOVERY for Booksellers

  • Retain the customer relationship.
  • Improved reader satisfaction.
  • QR code generation functionality for offering samples, excerpts and snippets in promotional material and on point of sale.
  • Improved virality and word-of-mouth among readers through sharing of previews on social media and newsletters.

Environmental Benefits for Bookshops

  • Eliminates the waste of printing and distributing of physical excerpts.

Audience Insight Benefits

  • Others don’t share their engagement data, we do. Jellybooks are specialists in read-er analytics with our work featured in the New York Times, the Guardian, The Bookseller and elsewhere.
 

DISOVERY User Guide and Technical Specifications

Setting-up a Jellybooks Retailer Account

To use the service, Jellybooks will create a retailer account for you and send you a link to a dedicated sign-in page.

Reader Registration

Readers can read or listen to excerpts and snippets anonymously. As part of our “read later” feature, readers have the option to register or sign-in to add an excerpt to their cloud library. This allows readers to store and retrieve samples across retailers and publishers, providing readers with a single repository of all the books they have been sampling.

Data Collection and Reader Analytics

We collect detailed engagement data. Unlike others services, we advise readers of this practice and provide them with a dedicated page for seeing their own reading data.

Accessibility Support

The Jellybooks Cloud Reader was built with accessibility in mind and we continuously improve and enhance our reading experience for all readers, whether they are fully able, dyslexic, have a motor impairment, atypical colour perception (“colour blind”), reduced eyesight (older readers), are partially sighted or even fully blind. We aim to ensure that no reader or reviewer is left out and adhere wherever possible to WCAG/WAI-ARIA guidance.

Note that from June 2025 digital services and products in the EU need to be fully accessible and comply with relevant EU directives. Other countries have different timelines with regards to the implementation of the Marrakesh Treaty.

 

Jellybooks DISCOVERY Pricing

The Jellybooks DISCOVERY service is provided as a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) and is free for retailers.

Publishers pay a modest fee per book to use the service and distribute samples to retailers.

Jellybooks is a UK-based company registered at 19 Villa Road, Brixton, London SW9 7ND with Company House number 7503460 and VAT registration number GB-128-7769-67.

free sign-up

Developed and supported with funding from Innovate UK and the Arts Council England.