Recently, the Book Industry Study Group announced a new program to help publishers verify the strength of their product information, or metadata, through a certification process that utilizes key data elements recommended in BISAC’s Product Metadata Best Practices.

Metadata is extremely important in making sure your books find their way into the consumer’s hands. Databases of all sizes and shapes rely upon this information for a variety of purposes. Everywhere a consumer might look to find information on your books – search engines, online retailers, bookstores, and wholesalers – all of these need data about your products to adequately inform the customer.

Of course, the old adage “garbage in, garbage out” emphasizes the importance of ensuring your product’s bibliographic data is current and complete. For many publishers, this task is a time consuming and inefficient process of managing multiple spreadsheets and talking with multiple industry partners in order to make sure that incorrect information isn’t “floating” around out there somewhere.

Additionally, as an industry it’s vitally important that we track the sales of Christian books in order to understand trends and plan for the future. Without proper or complete product data, comparative data analysis becomes very difficult.

It is for this reason that ECPA has partnered with Firebrand Technologies, Inc. to offer ECPA Title Management Web: an online solution that allows marketing departments of any size publisher to manage the data for their title listing in one convenient location. Everything from images, to jacket copy, table of contents, and awards information can be easily stored in this online repository.

Storing and managing the data in this intuitive new tool is only a part of the picture. The real value comes in what happens to your product data from there. At the click of a button you can release product information to over 100 industry partners in the file format (ONIX, XML, etc.) and frequency requested by the partners. With so many places receiving the exact same data about your products, the chances of incorrect data about your books making its way out into the marketplace shrink dramatically.

In addition to this, ECPA Title Management Web can be used to easily print tip sheets and title cards for major retailers, saving you money in time and resources.

Any ECPA member publisher who subscribes to this service will receive a discount off of Firebrand Technologies’ regular subscription rates. Considering the efficiencies created in using such a high-powered tool and the money saved through the ECPA discount, this program has a direct-benefit impact on member companies’ bottom line as well as a direct impact on our industry’s data.

If you are interested in learning more about this innovative new program, please contact Michael Covington.

ECPA’s Title Management Web provides member publishers:

• Timely, accurate distribution of title data to over 100 industry partners.
• Title data distributed in the formats and frequencies requested by trading partners.
• Easily create title cards and tip sheets for all of your titles.
• Discounted subscription rate just for being an ECPA member.
• Instant verification of key title information giving you the confidence that your information is complete.

For more information, contact Michael Covington.

“Mark Kuyper tells me the good news that ECPA has partnered with Firebrand Technologies to facilitate the delivery of accurate, timely product data from ECPA publishers to down-stream users. I have long admired Firebrand Technologies’ contribution to data integrity. I can give you no better testimony than to tell you our two publishing divisions, Sterling Publishing and Barnes & Noble Proprietary Publishing, are both Firebrand Technologies shops.”

Barnes & Noble’s Joe Gonnella addresses ECPA publishers on
Good Title Data = Stronger Sales