Book Seller Telegram Bot

A small Telegram bot written in Python that sells a single digital book in PDF format. The idea is simple: a user opens the bot, sees a short description, goes to an external payment page, and then receives the book file.

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Overview

The bot is aimed at authors or small projects that want a minimal, no-frills way to sell a single digital product through Telegram. Payment itself happens on an external page; the bot only handles the flow around it and keeps track of buyers

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Features

• /start - greeting, short book description and an inline "Buy book 💳" button with an external payment link.
• /i_paid - the user tells the bot they completed the payment; the user is then marked as "paid" in the database.
• /get_book - if the user is marked as paid, the bot send the PDF book.
• /buyers - show a list of all buyers (available only for admins).
• /broadcast - send a simple broadcast message to all users (admins only).

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Tech Stack

• Python 3.x
• aiogram
• python-dotenv
• SQLite - lightweight built-in database for users and purchases
• Standard library: asyncio, logging, pathlib, database, etc.

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Project Structure

A simplified view of the project layout:

app/
    main.py            # bot entrypoint (used with: python -m app.main)
    handlers.py        # command/message handlers
    keyboards.py       # inline keyboards
    config.py          # configuration, paths, .env loading
    services/
        payments.py    # payment / purchase storage logic
        crm.py         # simple CRM: user tracking, first
   
data/
    book.pdf           # the book file
    images/            # optional images for intro / cover

requirements.txt
README.md

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Installation

1. Clone the repository and go to the project directory:

   git clone https://github.com/kandera37/book-bot-telegram.git
   cd book-bot-telegram 

2. (Optional) Create and activate virtual environment:

   python -m venv .venv
   source .venv/bin/activate      # Windows: .venv\Scripts\activate

3. Install dependencies:

   pip install -r requirements.txt

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Configuration

Copy .env.example to .env and fill in your values:

cp .env.example .env

Then edit .env and set:

BOT_TOKEN=...
PAY_URL=...

If you want to show an intro image on /start, you can also add files like:

data/images/01_intro.jpg
data/images/02_author.jpg

Images are loaded from the data/images folder and sorted by file name.

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Running the bot

python -m app.main

The bot will start in polling mode. Open Telegram, find your bot and send /start to begin.

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Fake payment flow

In this version, there is no real payment provider integration. The flow is intentionally simple:

1. The user taps the "Buy book 💳" button and goes to an external payment page (PAY_URL).
2. After payment, the user returns to the bot and sends /i_paid.
3. The bot marked as paid in the SQLite database.
4. The next /get_book call sends the PDF book.

This setup is enough for a prototype or for internal use, and it keeps the bot logic independent of any specific payment service.

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Notes for recruiters / engineers

I treat this project as a small but complete example of Telegram bot:

• Structure - code is split into modules (handlers, keyboards, services, config) instead of one big script.
• Configuration - the bot token and payment URL are loaded from .env; secrets are not hard-coded and should not be committed to the repository.
• Database layer - SQLite is used for storing users and purchases; there is a separate CRM module that keeps track of first_seen/last_seen timestamps.
• Logging - key actions (commands, book delivery, broadcast failures) are logged using the standard logging module.

In a real production setup this bot could be extended with a proper payment provider integration, more detailed CRM, and additional admin tooling. For now, it shows how I structure and ship a small, self-contained Python project.