About digital editions

Digital Editions is the Masterfile module for selling digital, in-browser reading experiences alongside your print catalog. It's included with the Retailer Ops plan. Each release is built from three nested pieces: projects, capsules, and editions.

The model

A project is the container for one title. It owns the cover art and the library of capsules and editions for that title.

A capsule is one self-contained reading experience inside a project: a scroll, a layered-art stack, an album, or a grid of attachments. Capsules live at the project level so they can be reused across editions. See About capsule types for what each type does.

An edition is what customers actually buy and read. It's a named, ordered composition of capsules from the project, the customer-facing bundle. One project can ship multiple editions (a standard, a deluxe, an exclusive variant) that share the same capsule library but mix and order capsules differently.

Project (one title)
├── Capsules (the library, built once, used everywhere)
│   ├── Scroll capsule
│   ├── Layered-art capsule
│   ├── Music capsule
│   └── Attachment capsule
└── Editions (what customers buy)
    ├── Standard edition: picks A, B, D in this order
    └── Deluxe edition:   picks A, B, C, D in this order

How it maps to Shopify

When you publish a project, Masterfile creates one Shopify product for the project and one variant per edition.

Customers buy variants the same way they buy any other Shopify variant. The line item carries an editionId metafield on the variant, which Masterfile uses to grant the buyer an entitlement once the order is paid. See About digital edition access.

The merchant workflow

Three phases, roughly:

1. Create. Make a project, then build out the capsules it needs. Each capsule type has its own how-to: scroll, layered art, music, attachment.
2. Compose. Create editions and pick which capsules each one bundles, in what order. Compose and preview an edition.
3. Publish. Push the project to Shopify as a product with one variant per edition. Publish a digital editions project.

After the first publish, edits to the project, its capsules, or its editions land in a draft layer until you publish again. Customers keep seeing the last published version in between.

What's automatic vs. what you do

Automatic:

• Creating the Shopify product and variants on first publish, and keeping them in sync with the project on every republish.
• Stamping each variant with the editionId metafield that links it back to Masterfile.
• Granting customer entitlements when orders are paid, and auto-fulfilling the digital edition line item on the resulting order.
• Surfacing entitlements in the Shopify customer-account Digital Editions page.
• Minting short-lived viewer sessions when a customer opens an edition.

You:

• Build the project's capsules and editions.
• Publish the project when it's ready.
• Add the Digital Editions block to the customer-account theme once during setup. See Enable Shopify customer account pages.
• Set Shopify-side pricing, inventory, and sales-channel settings on the resulting product. Masterfile doesn't manage those.

Where to go next

• A top-down map of the whole product, including how publish and access fit together: How digital editions work.
• The available capsule types: About capsule types.
• How a customer's purchase becomes viewer access: About digital edition access.