Reader journeys

Overview

A journey belongs to a title and is built from up to eight steps, each one a screen. You add, remove, reorder, and hide steps in the portal under Titles → your title → Reader journey. Journeys are part of the Pro plan.

A journey only affects scans once you turn it on. Until then it is a draft you can preview, and your existing links work exactly as before.

What readers see

When a reader scans your cover, the QR code's Digital Link sends them to the first step of the journey. Each screen shows the step's content, a progress indicator, and two controls:

• Continue moves to the next step. You choose its label for each step, such as “See the book”.
• Back returns to the previous step.

The last step has no Continue button, so put the screen you most want readers to act on at the end, or make sure it carries buttons.

Step types

Every step can carry buttons, so a video step can also offer “Pre-order now” underneath the trailer. Uncheck Shown to hide a step without deleting it.

Videos

Paste a link to the video. What a video step can do depends on where the video lives:

• Play automatically is on by default. Browsers only allow a page someone has just opened to play video with the sound off, so autoplay always starts muted and readers tap to hear it. Turn it off and YouTube and Vimeo show a thumbnail that loads the player when tapped, which makes the page faster on mobile data.
• Continue automatically when the video ends shows a short “Up next” notice, then moves on unless the reader chooses to stay.
• Video shape is Auto by default. Choose Landscape, Portrait, or Square to override it, for example for a vertical video shared as a regular YouTube link. Portrait videos are sized to about 70% of the screen height so the heading and Continue stay in view.
• Instagram links can be /reel/, /p/, or /tv/, including share links that start with your username. The post must be public and allow embedding. Instagram shows its own card with your account name and a link to Instagram, and it loads Meta's scripts and cookies, unlike YouTube, which isbn.link loads in its privacy-enhanced mode.

Buttons and ISBNs

Each button has a label and a URL. A URL can include placeholders that are filled with the ISBN of the format the reader actually scanned, so one journey serves every edition of a title:

{isbn13}   9780143108276   ISBN-13 of the scanned format
{isbn10}   0143108271      ISBN-10 (979 ISBNs have none; the ISBN-13 is used)
{gtin}     09780143108276  14-digit GTIN

https://bookshop.org/book/{isbn13}
# paperback scan → https://bookshop.org/book/{paperback ISBN}
# hardcover scan → https://bookshop.org/book/{hardcover ISBN}

The store presets fill in a URL for you. Some stores have no address based on an ISBN, so paste the book's page from that store instead:

You can edit any preset URL, for example to add your affiliate ID (https://bookshop.org/a/YOUR-ID/{isbn13}). Button clicks go through isbn.link so they can be counted; the destination always comes from your saved journey.

Turning a journey on

Scans reach a journey only through the Link Type Mapping tab, the one place that decides where scans go. Click Use for scans on the Reader journey tab: it opens a new mapping with Target: Reader journey filled in. Save it as the Default link and a plain scan of any of the title's QR codes starts the journey. You can also map the journey to any other link type. Other link types, such as ?linkType=gs1:review, keep working as described in How link types work.

• Only one mapping is the Default link. Making the journey the default replaces whatever was the default before, such as the product page. The journey's Book page step still shows your product page.
• If you delete or disable the journey's mapping, anyone who opens an old journey link is sent to your product page, so nothing you have printed or shared breaks. While a mapping uses the journey, it must keep at least one step.
• Open preview shows the journey with a preview banner, whether or not a mapping uses it. Previews are not counted in your stats.

On phones

Almost every scan opens on a phone, so journeys are laid out for small screens first:

• The Book page step shows a small cover beside the title and puts your buttons right after the price, so they appear on the first screen.
• Continue stays pinned to the bottom of the screen while there is a next step.
• Buttons are full width and at least 44 pixels tall, the recommended size for tapping.
• Vertical videos, such as Shorts and Reels, are shown in a portrait frame.

Views and clicks

The Reader journey card shows, for the last 30 days, how many readers opened each step, what share of them reached it from step 1, and how many times each button was tapped. Use it to see where readers drop off and which stores they prefer. Only daily totals are kept, with nothing about individual readers.

Making a trailer for a journey

• Shoot vertical. A 9:16 video fills a phone screen; a widescreen one appears as a strip.
• Keep it short. Readers are standing in a shop or holding the book; 15 to 30 seconds is plenty.
• Add burned-in captions. Autoplay starts muted, so the first seconds have to work without sound.
• Hook immediately. Open with the line or image that tells readers what kind of book this is.

Troubleshooting

Scans don't go to the journey

Check the Reader journey tab: it says which link types use the journey. If it says Not used for scans yet, click Use for scans. If another mapping is the Default link, plain scans go there instead.

The video doesn't start by itself

Check that Play automatically is on for the step. Instagram videos can't autoplay. On an iPhone in Low Power Mode, the system blocks autoplay; readers can still tap play.

The video plays without sound

That is expected: browsers only allow muted autoplay. Readers tap the video to unmute.

A vertical video appears in a wide frame

Set Video shape to Portrait on the step. Auto can only tell a video is vertical from a Shorts or Reel link, or from the file itself.

The Instagram card says the link may be broken

The post is private, deleted, or doesn't allow embedding. Check it opens on instagram.com while signed out.

A store button opens the wrong edition

Use {isbn13} in the URL instead of a fixed ISBN, so each format's scan fills in its own ISBN.

Still stuck? Email hello@isbn.link.