Enhanced Metadata for Discovery -- Beyond the Basics

Editor's Notes

• #2: My name is Suzanne Franks. I am an engagement manager in the provider relations area at Bowker. Bowker is the world’s leading provider of bibliographic information. At this point in time we are encroaching on 40 million ISBNs in our database. We also generate research and resources for publishers to help their products become more discoverable. Bowker is the official ISBN agency for the united states and its territories. My role includes producing and coordinating webinars for publishers as well as coordinating outreach campaigns for improving metadata by following the best practices as indicated by the Book Industry Study Group, BISG. Prior to this I was a senior content editor here working with metadata submissions every day and improving these elements for increased discoverability of content.
• #3: Here are some fields which we consider to be the basic or required metadata elements to create a title record. We know that these elements provide the basic skeleton for every metadata record, regardless of the format -- whether it’s a print book, an ebook, or an audio book. Required means those elements needed to make asale in the supply chain, for example you cant sell a book without a price or a title.
• #4: Today I will focus on these enhanced metadata fields…….. I hope to give you all an overview of enhanced metadata, why we should pay attention to these fields for our business and how we can improve these fields for increased discoverability.
• #5: Here is our motivation for studying enhanced metadata fields: These fields help to increase the discoverability of your titles. Discoverability is the ease with which products can be identified and purchased through the supply chain. In a recent white paper published by the Nielsen US Book Study group on the Importance of metadata for discoverability and sales, it was noted that there is a very strong link between the completeness of corresponding metadata and the effect on the sales of that title. The study was done over a 12-month period from July 2015 to June 2016 and incorporated the bibliographic data from Bowker Books in Print for the top 100,000 best-selling titles during that time frame. I would like to show you some snapshots of those results and specifically how the results pertain to the presence of enhanced metadata elements. These snapshots will become the motivation for providing your titles with enhanced metadata to complete their records.
• #6: The first snapshot to discuss is the importance of cover images accompanying your title metadata. According to this study, the presence of a cover image had the most impact on sales when the title was a work of fiction. As you can see for the first set of bars, sales of fiction titles more than doubled when there was an image present, the percentage of sales increase was 170%. With non-fiction and Juvenile titles the percentage was not as high, but still increased average sales to about 55% higher.
• #7: The next snapshot I want to point out from the study is the effect of having one to two descriptive elements, or enhanced metadata elements for your titles. Descriptive metadata adds to the completeness and richness of the title’s record. Here you can see that the addition of one enhanced element, in this case the either the author biography or the annotation had a direct effect on driving sales higher, from just under 4000 units to just under 6000. When both enhanced elements -- Annotations and Bios -- were added, the sales increased again to the mid 6000 range.
• #8: The final snapshot from this study that I want to point out is the effect of adding keywords to your metadata. The purpose of keywords is to increase a title’s likelihood of discovery when searched for by a reader. As shown in the graph, titles that have the presence of keywords see average sales of 34% higher than those without keywords.
• #9: Now that we know the motivation behind why enhanced metadata should be included to complete a title’s record, go over the expectations of our industry for submitting these elements to providers in the supply chain. Its important to know the proper ways to submit these enhanced metadata elements.
• #10: According to BISG, all these metadata elements have the same metadata map requirement: requirement: submit 180 days prior to the pub date. Cover images… according to BISG, you can submit a placeholder image 180 days prior to the pub date, but be sure to ask your providers if they want placeholder images. Some do not and un fact the placeholder image may be difficult for them to remove when the actual cover image is submitted. Descriptions or annotations can also be submitted 180 days in advance. With the other text ONIX code to specify short or long description. Descriptions and author biographies should be kept evergreen by keeping track of the author and his/her other works. You can always go back and refresh an annotation or a biography to include any other projects, TV, or written word, that the author has created. For example if the author is involved in a popular TV show then you can change your authors bio and the annotation of the book they have written to leverage off of that other work. Author Biographies have a specific ONIX tag that can be associated with the author’s name, so its best to submit both the <b044> well as the other text tag for biographies. Keep these evergreen by updating on a regular basis. I suggest circling back 3 months after the pub date. Keywords are submitted as part of the Subject composite and separated by semicolons. As a point of reference for all your publications: remember to supply the same BIOs, annotations, Keywords, and Subjects for your titles regardless of the format.
• #11: Now that we have gone over the motivation for supplying these elements and the expectations of when and how to submit them, lets talk about the reality behind the submissions. I will show you an analysis of where we can improve to create greater discoverability and, in turn, possibly achieve greater sales.
• #12: Context for Bowker statistics on popular metadata. For All ISBNs as of September 2016 we had 38 million (38,168,933) and we will hit 40 million first quarter 2017! For Print ISBNs as of September 2016 we had 29 million (29,440,154) and we will hit 31 million in first quarter 2017! As you can see BISAC codes and cover images grow on an upward trend while growth for Bios and even annotations is a steady if slower rate. This highlights some of the challenges for publishers as senders of metadata and aggregators as receivers of metadata. As cover images are generally part of the regular metadata generation and delivery process while annotations and BIOs can be delivered in ONIX, they are usually more structured metadata and require special handling on both ends. If needed- Print ISBNs Total- 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 18,588,704 21,397,255 23,974,916 25,387,747 27,417,877 30,878,135
• #13: At Bowker we can research the metadata you supplied to us and create a Gap Report that reveals the timeliness and richness of your title metadata. The chart pictured here taken from a gap report for an anonymous publisher. As you can see for the chart, this publisher is sending in the majority of its metadata three-to-five months prior to publication and then following up after the pub date with updates or new information. This shows they are attempting to keep their titles evergreen. And that’s a good thing. We also receive this publisher’s metadata from the library of congress 6 to 8 months ahead of publication. Submitting your metadata within the timeframe suggested by the BISG best practices or even 3 to 5 five months in advance of pub date will have a very real impact on sales. Most retail stores purchase orders are submitted 5 months before publication. Picture your metadata as the ability for your publication to be discovered and then placed in the retailers’ purchase cart. If there's no metadata for the book, then they will not find the title and there for will not put the order in for the title a nd your book is not in the cart! At Bowker, The Gap Reports we produce for publishers can show the number of annotations, cover images, prices and bios for your titles. We can also analyze other fields to customize your gap report.
• #14: In addition to the gap report, we can also provide publishers with an in-depth analysis of your BISAC subject codes. Our Subject analyst, Michael Olenick, is on the BISAC committee for BISG. He was awarded the BISG distinguished service award for chairing the Thema sub-Committtee in 2016. This Subjects analysis report can be customized for a specific Publisher to show the strengths and weaknesses of the bisac codes you are submitting. Here’s two main tips for BISAC codes: Avoid using just the general code, those codes ending in 6 zeros, there is always a better choice than using a general code. As far as how many codes per title, the key is to use quality codes, not focus on the quantity. If your book is about calculus, you probably just need the calculus subject code. Remember to send in the same BISAC codes for all formats of a title.
• #15: Using the same metadata for all formats of a title will help with the discovery of all those formats for a title. Meaning every format will come up in a search by the customer. Following the BISG industry expectations for submitting metadata in advance of publication will have a direct effect on the purchase order buying cycle that we talked about. Revisit your titles after they are published and pay specific attention to any missing metadata, or any new details about your author or his/her other works that can somehow be woven into this title’s metadata. Update descriptions and reviews as well. Be aware of individual suppliers preferences. For example, some suppliers do not want you to send them placeholder images.