500 EYB Digital Previews

Late March 2018, Eat Your Books launched our EYB Digital Preview program which allows our members to view a selection of pages from a title – including photographs, illustrations, and complete recipes – with just a click.  This week we uploaded preview number 500!

Below is a screenshot from our EYBD Preview for Bakeland, just one of the beautiful books which have a preview available.

We have heard from members that a preview convinced them to buy a book, but others state, “I like online recipe links better“. Some publishers do not allow us to link to online recipes while others place a limit on the number of recipes we can link to online, and we need publishers to work with us. The EYBD Previews give a representation of the book, a peek inside, which helps our members get a better feel for whether or not the book is one that they might want to buy.

We have also heard that “most of the Previews are not indexed so I can’t add the recipes to my Bookshelf ” which we have worked to improve. Because these are previews and are usually put up ahead of publication, the recipe index gets added (on pub date) after the EYBD Preview goes live. There are 21 more previewed books that will get indexed so the percentage of indexed Preview books will then be 71%. Additionally, most recipes can be added to your bookshelf (1,280 of them).

You will also note that we provide EYBD Previews for special interest titles such as those related to keto and other diets. Those books are attractive to only a small percentage of our membership, so we do not plan to index them. The preview gives those members a look inside a book without taking away from our indexing budget for more popular books.

Some members have told us that they “don’t like the Previews because they can’t copy and paste them into my own recipe database or print them out“. That restriction is the agreement we have with our publishers, although you can use the recipe from a tablet (or your phone) in your kitchen. Please see this post for more help on adding EYBD Preview recipes to your bookshelf and this link explains how to access EYBD Previews.