George Edgeller is a Project Manager at whitefox. He manages whitefox’s self-publishing and selected brand and corporate projects. Here he shares what he has learned about managing metadata:

1) What is your biggest lesson learned about managing metadata?

‘It’s the metadata, stupid.’ Having complete metadata doesn’t guarantee sales, but without it it’s hard to achieve good sales so it’s vital to get it right.

2) What levels/qualities do you think metadata needs to achieve, in order to be effective?

You need to first sort out the basics. Reading Nielsen’s White Paper on the link between metadata and sales is a good place to start.

3) What tools and services have you tried to help with organising and enriching your metadata? Which was the best?

Nielsen’s BookData Enhanced Service is a huge help ensuring you have rich and thorough metadata.

4) If you could offer one piece of advice to anyone tasked with managing their company’s metadata, what would that be?

Get your metadata for a title feeding out as far in advance of publication as possible.

5) How do you think the management of metadata will evolve in the future?

Metadata standards and systems will inevitably change but the principles will remain the same: getting as much information about your titles out there to the people who buy books.

6) How important is good metadata to your company?

Good metadata is vital in helping discoverability and differentiating your titles from the thousands of other books being published.

7) How has your company benefited from good metadata?

We’ve benefited enormously. Our experience has definitely confirmed for us that good data helps sell books.