GIVE READERS A LOOK INSIDE

Sample Chapter Options

Let Readers Experience Your Book Before They Buy

A book description tells readers what your book is about. A sample lets them experience it. Choose a downloadable PDF, an interactive Flipbook, or use both to give prospective readers a meaningful introduction to your work.

WHY OFFER A BOOK PREVIEW?

Sometimes the Best Introduction Is the Book Itself

Your cover, description, reviews, and marketing can all help introduce your book. But a sample gives prospective readers something different: the opportunity to experience your writing voice, story, characters, subject matter, or approach for themselves.

Outskirts Press offers two complementary ways to do that: a portable Sample Chapter PDF and an interactive Flipbook Chapter Excerpt.

TWO WAYS TO SHARE YOUR BOOK

Choose the Preview Experience That Fits Your Marketing

Both options put actual book content into your marketing. The difference is how readers experience and share it.

INTERACTIVE ONLINE PREVIEW

Flipbook Chapter Excerpt

Best when you want an interactive, page-turning reading experience.

Give readers an online excerpt they can flip through in their browser. The Flipbook creates a more visual reading experience that can be shared by link or incorporated into your online promotion.

Ways to use your Flipbook:

Feature it on your author website or blog.
Share the link through social media and email.
Include it in reviewer, blogger, or media outreach.
Share it with book clubs and organizations.
Use it during presentations, webinars, or events.
Direct interested readers from the preview to your full book.

Explore the Flipbook Chapter Excerpt

DOWNLOADABLE PREVIEW

Sample Chapter PDF

Best when you want a portable file you can distribute directly.

Turn an excerpt from your book into a professional, downloadable PDF that readers can open, save, and read on their phone, tablet, or computer.

Ways to use your Sample Chapter PDF:

Offer it through your author website or blog.
Share it with subscribers or launch contacts by email.
Use it as a reader incentive or lead magnet.
Include it in your Digital Press Kit or other outreach materials.
Share it with reviewers, bloggers, book clubs, or organizations.
Use it throughout your own social and online marketing.

Explore the Sample Chapter PDF

YOU DON'T HAVE TO CHOOSE JUST ONE

Use Both Preview Formats in Your Marketing

The PDF and Flipbook serve different purposes, so authors can also use them together rather than choosing between them.

Use the downloadable PDF when you want a file you can distribute directly. Use the Flipbook when you want to send readers to an interactive online experience. Both can ultimately point interested readers toward the complete book.

Offer your Sample Chapter PDF through your website, email, outreach, or another marketing channel when a downloadable file makes sense.

Experience

Share your Flipbook Chapter Excerpt when you want readers to experience a visual, interactive preview directly in their browser.

Continue

Give readers a clear path from either preview to your book page or retailer so they can easily continue with the complete book if they choose.

MORE THAN A SNEAK PEEK

Turn Part of Your Book into Reusable Marketing Content

A chapter excerpt gives you something substantial to share whenever prospective readers, reviewers, organizations, or other contacts want to know more about your book.

Show Your Writing

Let prospective readers experience your actual voice, storytelling, subject matter, or approach rather than relying only on promotional copy.

Give Readers More to Explore

Offer interested readers a meaningful next step when they want to know more than a cover and book description can tell them.

Support Reader-List Building

If you manage your own website or email marketing, a downloadable sample can be offered as an incentive for readers to join your list.

Strengthen Outreach

Give reviewers, bloggers, book clubs, organizations, media contacts, and other interested parties an accessible introduction to your work.

Reuse Across Channels

Incorporate your preview into your website, email, social media, outreach, events, book club promotion, and other appropriate marketing activities.

Build Your Marketing Library

Add another professional, reusable asset to the collection of materials you can use when promoting yourself and your book.

MAKE YOUR PREVIEW PART OF THE PLAN

Don't Just Tell Readers About Your Book. Let Them Experience It.

Your book page tells readers what your book is about. A chapter preview gives them an opportunity to experience part of it for themselves.

Whether you're building an email list, planning a launch, contacting reviewers, reaching book clubs, promoting through social media, attending events, or preparing for a Virtual Book Tour, a reusable chapter preview gives you another piece of content to incorporate into your marketing.