How I Built a Book Pre-Order Website With a 3D Cover in 5 Days
2026-10-14 · Web Development · By Toluwani Moses Bakare
My dad was writing a book, and at some point he asked me how he should start selling it. I told him to open a pre-order.
That sounded like good advice for about a minute. Then I realised someone had to build the thing that would take the pre-orders, and that someone was me. It took about five days.
Why a pre-order first
A pre-order tells you early whether people actually want the book, and it brings in orders before the printing is even finished. For a first-time author that is a much better place to start than waiting until the books are in a box and hoping.
The book is Built to Last: Discovering God's Pattern for Marriage That Endures, written by my dad, Pastor Femi Bakare. It needed a proper home online, not just a payment link in a WhatsApp message.
The idea I wasn't sure I could pull off
I didn't want to put a flat picture of the cover on a page. I wanted visitors to see the book itself, something they could grab, turn around and look at from the front, the spine and the back.
The problem was that I had never built anything 3D before. Not once.
So I did what I usually do when I don't know something. I researched it. That is how I found Three.js, a JavaScript library that draws 3D in the browser. I decided to use it, and because the site is built with React, I used React Three Fiber, which lets you write a Three.js scene as React components.
Learning Three.js from zero
Most of the five days went here. I spent a few days reading, studying and trying things out before I properly understood how to use the library, and a few other small things took up the rest of the time.
The result is on the site now. You can drag the book around, or tap Front, Spine and Back to jump to each side. It is the part of the project I'm proudest of, mostly because I had no idea at the start whether I could do it.
If you have a 3D idea and have never done it, my honest advice is to pick one small, real goal and learn only what you need for it. For me that was one book and three angles. It kept the learning focused.
Keeping the backend simple
I did not want a complicated backend. For a pre-order the job is actually small: take the payment, record the order, and send the right emails.
So I used Make.com, an automation platform, to handle that flow. The payment goes through Korapay, the order is saved in Supabase, and Make sends the emails and moves everything along so it flows smoothly. I never had to write and host a custom server for any of it.
That choice is why the build only took five days. If I had decided to code every email and every step by hand, the project would have been a lot longer, and the part people care about, the book, would have gotten less of my time.
What happened after the pre-order
The site has since moved from pre-order to live orders, and I added a one-time download page for people who buy the e-book. You can see it at book.voiceoftruthonline.com.
If you are building something like this
- Start with a pre-order. It was my advice to my dad and it is a good way to test demand before you spend on printing.
- Don't handle payments yourself. Use a provider like Korapay or Paystack and let them deal with the hard parts.
- Automate the boring parts first. Emails and order updates are perfect for a tool like Make.com before you write any code.
- Keep the fancy part small. One thing that makes people stop and look, done well, beats five effects done badly.
I build sites like this for authors, small businesses and startups across Nigeria, from a simple order flow to a full platform. You can see more on my projects page, or get in touch if you have something you want built.