Metadata

I have a difficult time with metadata. I’ve taken classes to try and figure it out but it’s a little like learning Greek. I thought if I blogged about it, it might help me gain a better understanding and maybe it might get other authors thinking about it. This is definitely not a techie post. Please feel free to comment.

What is Metadata?

It’s information, the information bookstores, libraries, and online stores use to categorize a book – your book. (or my book).  To start it should include the title, genre, series information, the author, blurb, back cover, table of contents, index, page numbers, publisher and copyright, and narrator if it’s an audiobook.

Researching Amazon and other bookstores can help with those. They can be keywords, mystery, hard-boiled, spy stories, tales of intrigue, political, kidnapping, thriller, etc.. Research books similar to yours, or by a similar writer and see the tags they use on their book store page.

Metadata can help sell your book by helping people who read your genre, find your book. Then your cover and blurb will help sell them your book. The metadata also helps the bookstores place your book in the right spot for the reader looking for your book.

Some area to check when doing your metadata is if the book is a series. Did you include the series number? That information will usually link the books, making it easier for readers to buy the next book.

It can be work at the start when you publish your book but metadata is a very important tool to sell your book.

And that’s not all. Then there are the metatags that are used for SEOs. That’s way beyond me at this time.