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Publisher Book Catalog

Turn your seasonal list into a flipbook booksellers open on the shop floor, with Flipbooks AI. Every forthcoming title keeps its jacket, its ISBN, its format, its publication date and the marketing plan behind it, and a buyer can go from a listing straight to your order form without hunting for a spreadsheet. Made for trade publishers, university presses and independent houses working one season at a time. It costs nothing, carries no advertising and no watermark, and there is no cap on the number of lists you announce.

Publisher Book Catalog

How to Publish a Seasonal Catalog

1

Upload the Catalog PDF

Upload the file your designer delivered. Flipbooks AI keeps the spreads exactly as they were set, with the jackets at full resolution and every ISBN line still under the title it belongs to, and builds a preview straight away.

2

Add Order Links and Branding

Add your imprint mark and colors, drop a link on each listing for the order form, the sample chapter or the author page, and add a contents page that jumps to a month, an imprint or a category.

3

Publish and Send the Link

Publish in one click, then send the link with your sales letter, give it to your reps for appointments and put it on the trade page of your site. Set a password first if the list is embargoed until the sales conference.

How to Create a Publisher Book Catalog Flipbook

How to Create a Publisher Book Catalog Flipbook

Start from the file your designer delivered. Upload the catalog PDF and a flipbook preview appears with the spreads intact and the jackets at full resolution. Add your imprint logo, set the colors to your house style, drop a link on each listing for the order form and the sample chapter, and add a contents page that jumps to a month or an imprint. Open it on a phone to check the ISBN line still reads at that size. Publish, then send the link with your sales letter and put it on the trade page of your site.

Create Your Book Catalog

What Is a Publisher Book Catalog?

A publisher book catalog is the document you send out ahead of a season. It carries every title you are publishing in that window: the jacket, the author, the ISBN, the format, the trim size, the page count, the publication date, the price, the rights you hold and the marketing planned behind it. Booksellers order from it, librarians build acquisition lists from it, and rights buyers scan it for anything they can license. Flipbooks AI takes the file your designer delivered and turns it into a flipbook whose pages turn like a printed catalog. Nothing reflows, so the double page spread you gave your lead title stays a double page spread and the jacket stays beside the copy that sells it. What is added is the ordering: a buyer taps a title and lands on the order form, the sample chapter or the author page.

Create Your Book Catalog
What Is a Publisher Book Catalog?
What Is a Publisher Book Catalog?
What Is a Publisher Book Catalog?
What Is a Publisher Book Catalog?

Frontlist, Backlist and Special Sales

One season is not one document. The frontlist catalog goes to buyers making the seasonal order. The backlist catalog is the one a shop reaches for in November when a title sells out. A special sales list goes to the gift accounts, the museums and the corporate buyers who never see the trade catalog at all. Build each as its own flipbook and give each its own link, so the analytics stay separate and nobody is handed ninety pages to find the fifteen that concern them. When a backlist title gets a new jacket, you replace one spread and republish rather than living with it until the next print run.

Create Your Book Catalog
Frontlist, Backlist and Special Sales

Trusted by Fortune 500 Companies

ISBNs, Formats and Publication Dates

ISBNs, Formats and Publication Dates

The metadata block under a title is the part a buyer actually orders from, and it is the part that has to be right. ISBN, format, trim size, extent, price, publication date, territory and BISAC or BIC category, set consistently across every listing so a buyer can read them at a glance. Keep hardback, paperback and audio editions grouped rather than scattered, because a shop ordering one usually wants to know the others exist. If a date moves, correct the listing and republish. The link a buyer already has now shows the new date, which is the single most useful thing this changes about a catalog.

Create Your Book Catalog
Why a Season Belongs in a Flipbook
Why a Season Belongs in a Flipbook
Why a Season Belongs in a Flipbook
Why a Season Belongs in a Flipbook

Why a Season Belongs in a Flipbook

A season has a calendar, and a printed catalog cannot keep up with it. A pub date moves, a jacket is redrawn, a title is pulled, and the copies already in the field are wrong from that moment on. A flipbook holds the same link through all of it, so the version a bookseller opens in March is the version you corrected in February. It also travels better. A rep no longer carries a box to an appointment, an overseas buyer does not wait on a courier, and a librarian who asked for the list gets it in the same reply rather than a fortnight later. The document your designer made stays intact, and the season stays accurate.

Create Your Book Catalog

Jacket Art That Survives a Zoom

A jacket sells a book before a word of copy does, and a jacket that falls apart when someone looks closely is doing the opposite. Reproductions keep their resolution here, so a buyer can see the foil, the type treatment and the illustration rather than a soft rectangle. That matters most for the titles a shop has never heard of, where the cover is doing all the work. It also matters for your designers, who spent weeks on that cover and would rather not watch it get compressed into mush on the way to the people deciding how many to take.

Create Your Book Catalog
Jacket Art That Survives a Zoom

Publisher Book Catalog Alternatives

Issuu

Issuu

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • High Resolution Jackets
  • Realistic Page Turns
  • Clickable Order Links
  • Reading Analytics
  • Mobile Ready
  • Password Protection
  • Instant Sharing
  • Fast Loading
Flipbooks AI

Flipbooks AI

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • High Resolution Jackets
  • Realistic Page Turns
  • Clickable Order Links
  • Reading Analytics
  • Mobile Ready
  • Password Protection
  • Instant Sharing
  • Fast Loading
FlipHTML5

FlipHTML5

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • High Resolution Jackets
  • Realistic Page Turns
  • Clickable Order Links
  • Reading Analytics
  • Mobile Ready
  • Password Protection
  • Instant Sharing
  • Fast Loading
Canva

Canva

  • Free & Unlimited
  • No Watermarks
  • High Resolution Jackets
  • Realistic Page Turns
  • Clickable Order Links
  • Reading Analytics
  • Mobile Ready
  • Password Protection
  • Instant Sharing
  • Fast Loading
Rights, Territories and Co-Edition Enquiries

Rights, Territories and Co-Edition Enquiries

A rights guide is a catalog with a different reader. Foreign publishers, film scouts and co-edition partners want the pitch, the extent, the delivery date, the territories still available and a name to write to. Set out what you hold and what is gone plainly, because an ambiguous rights line costs a whole exchange of emails to resolve. Put a contact link on the page rather than in a footer nobody scrolls to. Publish a version per fair if the list you take to one is not the list you take to another, and each one keeps its own link and its own figures.

Create Your Book Catalog

Features Built for Publishers and Rights Teams

The things a catalog actually has to do are here, and none of them cost anything. Jackets keep their resolution, so a buyer can look at the finish on a cover rather than at a blur. Every listing can carry a clickable link: your order form, the title page on your own site, a sample chapter, a downloadable cover file or an author video. A contents page can jump to a month, an imprint or a category, so a buyer working a narrow list is not scrolling past ninety titles to reach yours. Add the terms page, the sales contacts, the returns policy and the rights grid, and correct any of them after the catalog is out without asking anyone to throw away what they already have.

Create Your Book Catalog
Features Built for Publishers and Rights Teams
Features Built for Publishers and Rights Teams
Features Built for Publishers and Rights Teams
Features Built for Publishers and Rights Teams

Match the Catalog to Your Imprint

A publishing house is recognized by its typography long before its logo, and the catalog should sit inside that rather than beside it. Add the imprint mark, set the colors, and choose a quiet page turn: a trade catalog is not the place for a flourish. If you publish several imprints, keep the frame consistent while each list keeps its own character, so a buyer knows where a title comes from without checking the spine. Doing this across every season builds the thing a small publisher most needs, which is a list that looks like a list rather than a collection of separate announcements.

Create Your Book Catalog
Match the Catalog to Your Imprint
Marketing Plans Buyers Can Actually Check

Marketing Plans Buyers Can Actually Check

The marketing paragraph is the part of a listing buyers read most skeptically, because it is the part most often written in hope. A flipbook lets you show rather than assert. Link the author video, the podcast appearance, the trade advertisement or the campaign page, so a buyer who wants to check the claim can, in one tap. Link the previous book if there is one. If a serialization or a festival slot is confirmed after the catalog goes out, add it and republish, and the buyer who reads the listing next week sees it. A plan that can be checked is a plan a buyer will believe.

Create Your Book Catalog
From a Ten Title List to a Full Frontlist
From a Ten Title List to a Full Frontlist
From a Ten Title List to a Full Frontlist
From a Ten Title List to a Full Frontlist

From a Ten Title List to a Full Frontlist

An independent publishing ten books a year needs a slim, well set document with good jackets and honest copy. A trade house announcing two hundred titles across six imprints needs sections, an index, a rights grid and a version for each market. Both are the same job here. Publish one catalog per season, or split it: a frontlist catalog for the buyers, a backlist catalog for the reorders, a rights guide for the fairs, a library edition with the cataloging data spelled out. Nothing is capped, so a small press can announce every season properly rather than only the two it can afford to print.

Create Your Book Catalog

Help Booksellers Find You Online

Buyers search for publishers by imprint name, by season and by category, often long after the sales letter has been deleted. A catalog flipbook can be set up so search engines read it, and embedding it on your trade page adds real content there and keeps a visitor reading. Give it a title carrying the imprint, the season and the year, because that is exactly what someone types when they are trying to find the list again. A catalog that is findable keeps working between seasons instead of going quiet the day after the order deadline.

Create Your Book Catalog
Help Booksellers Find You Online

Who Publishes Book Catalogs

2456+

Trade Publishers

6

University Presses

13

Independent Presses

24

Sales Reps

65

Rights Teams

9

Distributors

Accessible to Every Buyer and Librarian

Accessible to Every Buyer and Librarian

Librarians ask about accessibility more often than any other reader of a catalog, and they are right to. Screen reader support means a buyer with low vision hears the listing rather than being handed a picture of one. Keyboard navigation means someone who cannot use a mouse still works through every title in order. Clear contrast and generous type help everyone reading in a badly lit stockroom. Writing proper alternative text for the jackets takes an afternoon and it is the work that decides whether your season reaches your whole trade or most of it.

Create Your Book Catalog

Read on a Bookshop Floor and on a Train

Buyers rarely read a catalog at a desk. They read it standing in a stockroom between deliveries, on a phone on the way to a sales appointment, or at home the night before the order is due. Flipbooks AI serves all three. The layout you designed stays as it is, the pages turn under a thumb, and a jacket holds together when someone pinches to zoom on a title they half remember. There is nothing to install and no account to make, which is the difference between a buyer opening your list on the spot and promising themselves they will look at it later.

Create Your Book Catalog
Read on a Bookshop Floor and on a Train
Read on a Bookshop Floor and on a Train
Read on a Bookshop Floor and on a Train
Read on a Bookshop Floor and on a Train

Big Catalogs That Still Load Quickly

A full frontlist with two hundred jackets makes a heavy file, and a heavy file is one a buyer opens once on office wifi and never again on a phone. Compression here is measured rather than brutal, so cover colors survive it and the page still arrives fast, with the opening spreads on screen while the rest are still coming in. The buyer starts reading immediately. That is the difference between a catalog someone works through in a spare ten minutes and a catalog that sits in a downloads folder until the order deadline has passed.

Create Your Book Catalog
Big Catalogs That Still Load Quickly
Works With InDesign and Your Order System

Works With InDesign and Your Order System

The catalog is almost certainly laid out in Adobe InDesign, and nothing here changes that. Export the PDF and upload it. Link each listing out to wherever your orders actually go: your own trade ordering page, a wholesaler record, a distributor form or a plain mailto to your sales desk. Link the title page on your website so a buyer can find the full description and the author biography. Drop the embed code onto your trade page so the catalog sits with the terms and the contact list. What your designer delivered is what a buyer sees, which is the first thing a designer will ask you about.

Create Your Book Catalog
Free to Publish, With No Watermark on a Jacket
Free to Publish, With No Watermark on a Jacket
Free to Publish, With No Watermark on a Jacket
Free to Publish, With No Watermark on a Jacket

Free to Publish, With No Watermark on a Jacket

Flipbooks AI is completely free. No watermark sits across an author photograph, no page limit truncates the back half of your list, and no upgrade stands between you and the reading figures. Print and post is the cost that quietly shapes how publishers announce a season: the quote comes in, the mailing gets trimmed to the accounts that order most, and the shops on the edge of the list hear about your books late or not at all. Publishing the catalog costs nothing here, so the whole trade list can have it on the same morning, and the print budget can go on the two or three titles that genuinely need a physical presenter.

Create Your Book Catalog

An Archive of Every Season You Published

Publish a catalog each season and a publishing history builds itself without anyone maintaining it. A bookseller can check what you did two autumns ago. A new sales hire can read four seasons in an afternoon and understand the list better than any briefing document would manage. A rights agent can find the year a title was announced. None of it depends on somebody locating the last box of printed catalogs in a storeroom, and none of it walks out of the building when the person who kept the folder leaves.

Create Your Book Catalog
An Archive of Every Season You Published

What Publishers and Sales Teams Say

We are four people publishing about eighteen books a year, and printing a catalog was always the first thing cut. Now every season gets one and the whole account list gets it on the same morning instead of the twenty shops we could afford to post to. Two independents ordered from us for the first time last autumn because they had actually seen the list.

Marketing team
Marketing team

Product catalogs

The correction is what sold it to me. We moved a lead title by six weeks in January and the printed catalogs were already on desks. This time I changed the date, republished, and every buyer with the link had it right that afternoon. I have stopped dreading schedule changes quite so much.

Studio owner
Studio owner

Client lookbooks

Our reps open it on a tablet in appointments now. The jackets hold up when a buyer zooms in, which matters because half our list is debuts and the cover is doing the selling. One rep told me she stopped carrying the box entirely after the second season.

School office
School office

Newsletters and programmes

I run rights and I take a different list to each fair. Publishing one flipbook per fair with its own link was straightforward, and I can see which titles a scout kept coming back to before the follow up emails go out. That has changed which books I lead with in a meeting.

Independent designer
Independent designer

Portfolio flipbooks

Embargoed Titles and Restricted Catalogs

Embargoed Titles and Restricted Catalogs

Some lists cannot be public yet. A sales conference runs before the announcement. A big acquisition is under embargo until the trade press has it. A rights guide is for the fair appointments and nobody else. Password protection keeps a catalog to the people you send the password to, and downloading can be turned off. Be clear about what that gives you: the password gates the reading, not the underlying file, so a genuinely confidential advance or an unannounced author is safer left out of the document until the embargo lifts.

Create Your Book Catalog

One Link for Booksellers, Librarians and Rights Buyers

A season has to reach several audiences at once, and they all want it in different places. Send the link with the sales letter to your accounts. Put it in the newsletter that goes to librarians. Give it to your reps to open in an appointment on a tablet. Attach it to the rights email before a fair so a scout can read it on the flight. Embed it on the trade page of your own website so a shop that finds you in September still sees the autumn list. If a catalog is under embargo until the sales conference, set a password and lift it on the day.

Create Your Book Catalog
One Link for Booksellers, Librarians and Rights Buyers
One Link for Booksellers, Librarians and Rights Buyers
One Link for Booksellers, Librarians and Rights Buyers
One Link for Booksellers, Librarians and Rights Buyers

Cheaper Than a Print Run, and Faster to Correct

It would be dishonest to say this replaces the printed presenter a rep puts on the table in an appointment. That object does a job. What it replaces is the print run that went out to four hundred accounts, cost more than a small book, and was out of date on three listings by the time it landed. There is no printing bill, no postage, and no fortnight between a change and the trade seeing it. Most publishers end up doing both: a short print run for the appointments that need one, and the flipbook for everyone else.

Create Your Book Catalog
Cheaper Than a Print Run, and Faster to Correct

Compare Book Catalog Tools for Publishers

ApplicationRatingUnlimited CreditsUsage RatingDescription
10/10Yes1

Flipbooks AI publishes an unlimited number of seasonal catalogs for nothing, with no watermark across a jacket, covers that stay sharp under a zoom, an order link on every listing, password protection for an embargoed list, and figures showing which titles buyers kept returning to.

Edelweiss

5.2/10No2

Edelweiss is where a great many buyers already work, and its strength is the trade plumbing around a catalog: title data, ordering and buyer accounts in one place. It is a subscription platform built to its own template, so a house that wants its designed catalog read as designed usually publishes that separately.

Issuu

7.1/10No3

Issuu hosts a large public library and is a familiar home for trade publishing, so a catalog there sits among documents of a similar kind. Free publishing wraps your pages in Issuu branding and its own reader, which is an odd frame around a list you have not announced yet.

FlipHTML5

8.3/10No4

FlipHTML5 turns a catalog PDF into a flipbook quickly and has a long list of options for anyone who wants them. Free accounts place its branding on your pages, which is awkward beside an imprint mark, and the reporting a sales director would want belongs to a paid plan.

Heyzine

6.4/10No5

Heyzine is pleasant to use and its page turn feels right for a catalog, so a small press can put a season out the same week the files are ready. Free accounts cap how many flipbooks you keep, which a publisher announcing three seasons a year will meet before long.

Adobe InDesign

7.8/10No6

Adobe InDesign is where essentially every publisher catalog is laid out, and nothing here takes its place. What it does not give you is hosting, one link to send the trade, or any sense of which listings were read once the file went out.

Canva

6.9/10No7

Canva is a genuinely good way to lay out a catalog when there is no designer on staff, and the templates get a small press to something presentable fast. Its viewing is basic, without the page turn, the order links on a listing or the reading figures a sales team asks for.

Flipsnack

8.1/10No8

Flipsnack has a browser based editor, which suits a publisher building the catalog and the flipbook in the same place. Free use is restricted, and taking its branding off your pages and reaching the fuller statistics both sit in the paid tiers.

Publuu

6.5/10No9

Publuu makes clean flipbooks and tells you whether a link was opened, which is useful when a catalog goes to a named list of accounts. The free tier behaves like a trial, so a house keeping several seasons online would be looking at a paid account.

A PDF Email Attachment

7.6/10No10

Emailing the catalog PDF costs nothing and every buyer understands it. It also means a large download before anyone sees a jacket, spreads split in half on a phone, no order links, and no idea whether the account you most wanted ever opened it.

Editions for Reps, Libraries and Book Fairs

Editions for Reps, Libraries and Book Fairs

One season often needs several documents. A rep edition with the sales points and the terms. A library edition with the cataloging data and the review coverage set out plainly. A rights guide for the fairs with the territories and the sample material. A trade edition for the shops. Set each one up off the same design with a link of its own. The figures stay separate, so you find out whether the library edition is actually opened before you decide to make one again next season.

Create Your Book Catalog
See Which Titles Buyers Kept Coming Back To
See Which Titles Buyers Kept Coming Back To
See Which Titles Buyers Kept Coming Back To
See Which Titles Buyers Kept Coming Back To

See Which Titles Buyers Kept Coming Back To

Publishers have almost never known which pages of a catalog were read. Flipbooks AI shows how many people opened it, which spreads held them and where they stopped. If buyers linger on a debut you were nervous about and skim past a lead title, that is worth knowing before the print run is set. If everyone leaves the catalog at the same point, the section order may be working against you. It is not a sales forecast and should not be treated as one, but it is honest information about a document that has always gone out and said nothing back.

Create Your Book Catalog

A Catalog That Still Opens Seasons Later

Digital publishing has a poor record on longevity, and plenty of catalogs from fifteen years ago now open as a broken plugin notice or nothing at all. Flipbooks AI keeps pace with browsers and web standards, so a season published now still opens for the bookseller, the librarian or the researcher who comes back to it much later. Improvements land on their own, and there is nothing at your end to install. For a document that quietly becomes the record of what your house published, that is worth more than it sounds.

Create Your Book Catalog
A Catalog That Still Opens Seasons Later

Frequently Asked
Publisher Book Catalog

What is a publisher book catalog flipbook?

It is your seasonal catalog published as a flipbook. The jackets, listings, ISBNs and marketing copy keep the layout your designer set, the pages turn like the printed version, and a buyer opens it from a link with nothing to install and no account to make.

Is Flipbooks AI really free for publishers?

Yes. There is no charge, no watermark across a jacket, no limit on titles and no house licence to negotiate. Branding, order links, password protection and the reading figures are all included, whether you announce ten books a year or two hundred.

Can booksellers order straight from the catalog?

Every listing can carry a clickable link, so a buyer taps a title and lands wherever your orders go: your trade ordering page, a wholesaler record, a distributor form or an email to your sales desk. They do not have to leave the catalog to find it.

Will jacket images stay sharp when a buyer zooms in?

They will. Jackets keep their resolution, so a buyer can see the foil, the type treatment and the illustration rather than a soft rectangle. That matters most for the debuts, where the cover is doing most of the selling on its own.

Can I keep a catalog private until the sales conference?

Yes. Set a password so only your reps and invited accounts can open it, then lift it on announcement day and the same link serves everyone. Note that a password gates the reading rather than the file, so hold back anything genuinely confidential until the embargo ends.

How many titles can one seasonal catalog hold?

There is no limit. Publish a fifteen title list for an independent season or a full frontlist running across six imprints with a rights grid and an index at the back. A two hundred title list costs exactly what a fifteen title one does, which is nothing.

Can I correct a publication date after I send it?

Yes, and this is the change publishers notice first. Fix a date, swap a redrawn jacket or pull a title, then republish. Everyone who already has the link sees the corrected version, so the season stops going out of date the moment it is sent.

Can I publish a different catalog for each market?

Yes. Publish one flipbook per market or per channel, with the local prices, territories and contacts changed and the rest of the design untouched. Each version has its own link and its own reading figures, which is far clearer than one list full of footnoted exceptions.

Have more questions?

If you still have questions or want to explore more details about our features, limitations, and usage, we invite you to visit our full FAQ page.

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