5 Shopify Apps To Help You Sell More Books

Ecommerce 4 min read

It’s been about a year since we debuted our Lulu Direct integration for Shopify. In that time we’ve seen a ton of authors, creators, and businesses begin selling books online with their Shopify store. We’ve learned a lot from users about what they need most and how to help them be successful. Our goal was to give you the tools to run your business and help sell more books by offering readers exactly what they want from a shopping experience.

But Lulu Direct is just one piece of a successful web store. Shopify as well; their ecommerce platform is your means to accept payment. Lulu Direct is not a complete tool for selling your book online. It’s just one aspect of a successful online bookstore. But what about all the other aspects of running a store like accounting, advertising, and customizing the interface?

Shopify offers a solution: Apps! Of course. Like Lulu Direct, other savvy designers have crafted Shopify Apps that add or expand the functionality of your store in many helpful ways.

What Shopify Apps Do I Need?

Apps you might use will depend on what you want to do with your store and what features you want your customers to have. Customizing your store and shopping cart is a great way to provide a clean, easy, and enjoyable experience for your users. But how you do that depends on you, your style, and your customers.

I can’t help with every piece of the puzzle. But, if you’re focusing on selling your books, these Free Apps will help make your store more robust, easier to manage, and more enjoyable for your users.

1. Shopify® POS

Shopify Point of Sale services allow you to sell books from your mobile device using a card reader

While not strictly an App in way other Shopify Apps work, the Point of Sale is an additional service you add to your Shopify store. And Shopify POS does include a mobile App so you can take your retail on the road!

Which is the real benefit of the POS service. They sell a mobile card reader for $49 and with that tool, you can use your existing Shopify store to handle sales. That includes print-on-demand sales and selling copies on hand! I’m sure you’ve seen vendors taking payment via their smartphones with mini-card readers. The ability to always sell books, no matter the setting, makes Shopify POS well worth having.

2. Buy Button

Shopify Buy Button creates an HTML button you can embed anywhere to offer your book for sale

This App is built by Shopify to provide simple Buy Buttons you can add almost anywhere. All you do is add the App and select the option to copy a Buy Button line of HTML for your product, then add that HTML to your website or blog. The product’s image and a link to buy on your Shopify store will be created!

It’s also important to note that the Buy Buttons are a crucial piece of the Shopify Lite plan. Shopify’s lowest-cost plan centers around the functionality of providing Buy Buttons for your products. This allows you to sell on your website through Shopify’s ecommerce for the minimum investment.

3. Facebook & Instagram Channel

Shopify Facebook App connects your Shopify store to Facebook to sell books

Another Shopify built App, the Facebook Channel App supports connecting your store to your Facebook business page so you can sell right on social media. If you’re invested heavily in marketing on Facebook the Channel App is a must-have. Give your Facebook followers the ability to buy without leaving the site!

That’s a huge element behind the growth of social selling. If you want to sell more books, you need to bring those sales opportunities to your consumers where they like to (digitally) hang out.

4. Digital Downloads

Shopify Digital Downloads App allows for digital downloads after someone buys a book on your Shopify Store

One thing the Lulu Direct app lacks that some traditional Lulu users might miss is the ebook option. But we were conscious of this when we created Lulu Direct, knowing that Shopify already offered a range of great digital download Apps.

Digital Downloads is a simple App that provides a download button after an order is completed and an email with a link to download. You can limit downloading as well. Best of all, you can easily pair a digital download to a physical product (your book) to offer bundled options for print and ebook copies.

5. AMP

Shopify AMP App by Shop Sheriff to help improve mobile view for your book selling web store

I’m highlighting the Shop Sheriff AMP App because it’s the highest-rated free AMP option on the Shopify App store. That said, you just need to use some AMP App for your store. Find the one that works best for you and use it. If you can afford it, there are plenty of paid AMP Apps with a wider range of features.

AMP stands for Accelerated Mobile Pages and the App will help optimize your store to load faster and work better on mobile devices. AMP Apps will also help relay this information to Google, to ensure your mobile site ranks better in the mobile-first ranking systems.

Basically, all websites need to employ AMP best practices.

Sell More Books the smart way

Thanks to the huge boom in Shopify users over the last two years, the platform has been growing and expanding exponentially. This means the App creators are being more thorough and vigilant than ever before; and that you have access to more quality ways to configure your store. With conscious App creators offering better tools, designing and customizing your author site continually easier.

There’s no reason not to sell your book through online retailers too (no one is trying to usurp Amazon here) but studies continue to show that consumers prefer buying directly from creators. With Shopify and Lulu Direct, the opportunity to sell online directly to your readers has never been easier. And with the ever-expanding suite of Apps for Shopify stores, you can make your author website exactly the way you want (and need) it to be.