Book QR Code Generator

Where authors use a QR code for a book

A QR code turns paper into a link. A reader points their phone camera at it and lands on your page, with no typing and no searching. That makes it handy anywhere your book meets people offline:

• The back matter of your paperback, next to “Read the next book” or “Join my newsletter”.
• Bookmarks and postcards you tuck into signed copies or hand out at events.
• The sign on your table at a book signing, fair or convention.
• Business cards, flyers for a library talk, and the back of an ARC.
• Pull-up banners and posters, where people scan from a few steps away.

In an ebook, a plain link works better, since the reader is already on a screen. Save the code for print.

Point the code at your own site, not a store

Once a QR code is printed, you can't change where it goes. If it points at a store page, you're stuck with that page. Books go out of print, editions get new ASINs, and you might move from one retailer to all of them. Your bookmark keeps sending people to the old place.

A link to your own author website never has that problem. You decide what the page shows, today and in five years. List every book with links to every store, add a newsletter form and a reader magnet, and change any of it whenever you like. The code on the 500 bookmarks in your garage keeps working. That's why we start this tool with authorpage.me/yourname. If you don't have a site yet, you can make one with AuthorPage from your Amazon link.

How big should a QR code be on a book?

Never print a QR code smaller than 2 cm (about 0.8 in) wide, quiet zone included. On a book page or bookmark, 2.5 cm is a safe size. For anything people scan from further away, use the rule of ten: the code should be one tenth of the scanning distance. A sign read from 1.5 m needs a 15 cm code, and a banner read from 3 m needs 30 cm.

Shorter links make simpler codes with bigger squares, and those scan faster and print smaller. That's another reason a short address like authorpage.me/yourname beats a long store link full of tracking codes. If you do link to Amazon, clean the link first with our Amazon book link builder.

Colors, logos and getting it to scan

Phones read a QR code by the difference between dark and light. Keep the code dark and the background light, with a contrast of at least 4.5 to 1. The tool checks this as you go. A light code on a dark background is called inverted. Newer phone cameras read it, but plenty of scanner apps don't, so avoid it on anything you print in bulk.

You can put your logo or book cover in the middle. QR codes carry spare data, so they still scan with part of the pattern hidden. When you add an image, we switch to the highest error correction level (H) and keep the image under a fifth of the code. Leave the blank border, called the quiet zone, around the edge too. Then print one copy and test it with two different phones before you order 500.