The full 360° experience — a worked example, step by step
The book is sold anywhere.
The reader comes back to you.
A small QR code printed in every book — Amazon copy, bookshop copy, gift copy — opens a route back to your own app and website. From there you sell digital, physical and bundles direct, and stay connected through messages, push notifications and offers. Here is the whole loop, step by step, shown with an example publisher.
Printed on the last page of every copy
Enjoyed this book?
There's more where it came from.
Scan to open it in the publisher's own app — free bonus chapter, the audiobook, and 20% off the study guide that goes with it.
Scan with your phone camera
Opens the publisher's own app
Bonus content claims the reader
A publisher's digital flywheel — books, website, app and readers in one loop
The 360° growth loop — shown with an example publisher
Scan & discover
Printed in every bookTheir printed books — a QR on every back cover, wherever the book was sold
Buy direct from Foldhouse Press
Print + ebook + audio bundles · reader account
Their website — direct sales of digital, physical & bundles
A reader community they own — push offers, events, messages & rewards
FIG. 01 — Your app, assembled live · tap the tabs
Their branded app — their whole catalogue in readers' pockets
Scan & discover
Printed in every bookBuy direct from Foldhouse Press
Print + ebook + audio bundles · reader account
FIG. 01 — Your app, assembled live · tap the tabs
- 1Their printed books — a QR on every back cover, wherever the book was sold
- 2Their website — direct sales of digital, physical & bundles
- 3A reader community they own — push offers, events, messages & rewards
- 4Their branded app — their whole catalogue in readers' pockets
Data insights · revenue · content feedback → new titles
Foldhouse Press is a fictional publisher — but every element above would be yours: the covers from your catalogue, the QR on your back covers, your website selling direct, and your branded app — feeding a reader ecosystem you own. Data, revenue and content feedback flow back into the next book.
Four steps, one circle — the reader keeps coming back
Most publishing sales are dead ends: the book sells, the trail goes cold. The 360° loop turns every printed copy into a doorway back to you.
QR in every printed book
Wherever the book is sold — Amazon, a bookshop, a church bookstall — the printed page carries a route back to the publisher.
Reader lands in your app or site
The scan opens your branded app (or your website — we can help build that too). The reader creates an account: now you know them.
Direct sales — digital, physical, bundles
Ebook + print + audio bundles, study guides, series box sets — sold from your own store at 85–100% margin.
Ongoing connection
Push notifications, personal messages, in-app offers and new-release news — free reach to readers you used to pay to find again.
Then the loop closes: the next book they buy from you carries the same QR code — but this time they're already yours.
A QR code wherever your book travels
You don't control where your books are sold. You do control what's printed in them. That's the quiet advantage every publisher already owns — the paper itself.
Inside the book
Last page, first page, or chapter ends — "scan for the bonus chapter / audiobook / study guide".
On the cover & shelf
Back-cover corner and shelf-talkers in trade — turns a browse into a captured reader even without a sale.
In the parcel
A card in every direct order: "your library is waiting in the app" — converts one-off buyers into account holders.
Each code carries the book's ISBN, so the app knows exactly which title brought the reader in — and what to offer them next.
What the scan unlocks — the claim ladder
- 1
Instant
Free bonus chapter or author note for this exact title — no account needed to taste it.
- 2
One tap later
Create an account to keep it — the reader joins your list, GDPR-clean, by choice.
- 3
Same visit
"Own the ebook + audiobook of this title for £4.99" — an upgrade only the publisher can offer.
- 4
Next week
Push notification: the study guide that pairs with their book, 20% off in-app.
Your brand, not ours — here shown as the fictional Foldhouse Press
This interactive mockup shows what every publisher gets: an app in your own name, your colours and your catalogue — an app that looks like it was always yours. At a demo, we build this from your real brand and titles.
FIG. 01 — Your app, assembled live · tap the tabs
Interactive — tap the tabs on the phone
One library, every format
Ebooks, audiobooks, video and courses side by side — protected by Readium LCP, the open DRM standard, with no vendor lock-in.
The QR scan lands here
The code in the printed book deep-links to that title's page in the app, with the bonus content ready to claim.
Push notifications built in
Watch the phone — a new-release notification slides in the way it would on a reader's real device. Free reach, no ad spend.
Their authors, their voice
Author pages, podcast episodes and video pull through from the publisher's own channels — the app feels editorially alive, not like a shell.
Sell digital, physical and bundles — at your margin, not theirs
Checkout runs through your storefront at 0% store fee, so fee exposure stays between 0% and 15% instead of the 30–65% the big retailers take. And every purchase syncs into the reader's app library — including their back-catalogue purchases.
Digital
- Ebooks (EPUB 3)
- Audiobooks
- Video & courses
- Bonus chapters & extras
Delivered instantly into the app library.
Physical
- Print books
- Box sets & gift editions
- Merchandise
- Bookstall & bulk orders
Fulfilled through your existing storefront.
Bundles
- Print + ebook + audio
- Book + study guide
- Series subscriptions
- Launch pre-order packs
The offer only the publisher can make — no retailer can bundle across formats.
A bundle the reader actually sees — titles from the example catalogue
The complete-series bundle
Print copy + ebook + the matching audiobook, offered the week after the reader scanned in from the first book. One tap, one checkout, straight into their library.
Publisher margin: 85–100% — vs 35–70% via retail
After the sale, the relationship starts
This is the part retail can never give you. Once the reader is in your app, you have a direct line — and every use of it is another reason for the next direct purchase.
Push notifications
New releases, series continuations, author events — straight to the lock screen, free. Email open rates are ~20%; push is seen by most of your installed base.
Personal messages
A note from the author to everyone who finished the book. A thank-you to first-time buyers. Small touches no retailer will ever send on your behalf.
In-app offers & promotions
Fair-season sales, loyalty pricing, early access for your best readers — targeted by what they've actually read, not guessed from ad data.
Your list, growing itself
Every scanned QR and claimed bonus adds a consented reader to your CRM — the marketing asset that compounds with every book you print.
You already paid for the reader — the QR code just stops you losing them
Every copy sold through retail is a marketing cost you've already sunk. The 360° loop recovers it.
£0
Extra print cost
A QR code is ink you're already paying for. No new hardware, no packaging change, no retailer permission needed.
1 scan
From stranger to known reader
The moment a reader claims their bonus content, an anonymous retail sale becomes a name, an email and a reading history you own.
×N books
The loop compounds
Every future title carries the same code. Your reach grows with your backlist — the asset Amazon builds today, built for you instead.
Know your readers.
Grow your community.
Own your future.
Own your reader relationships, keep 85-100% of your margins, and stop paying to re-acquire your own fans.