ENTRIES TAGGED "metadata"
Author platforms and the Black Box Effect
A report from Author (R)evolution Day
If you’ve spent as much time reading author blogs as I have, you may have noticed a disturbing pattern. In nearly every “here’s how I did it” post in which the author explains her route to greater visibility and sales, there comes a point when something happens that the author did not plan for or expect, that puts her over the top.
I call this the Black Box Effect: the degree to which authors are still mostly in the dark about what makes their book marketing and platform-building efforts succeed. For authors to take full advantage of this incredible time in publishing we need to reduce that effect, which means we need better data, and better tools to help capture and measure the data that already exists. So I went to Author (R)evolution Day last week to see how far along we are in chipping away at the edges of that black box.
A Publisher’s Job Is to Provide a Good API for Books
You can start with your index.
Introduction
Here is a radical statement: A publisher’s job is to provide good APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) for their books. Now that almost all books are made into digital products (that is, ebooks), good publishers of the future will be the ones who provide great APIs. In this article I am going to explore:
- why I think publishers must provide good APIs
- why this is actually much easier and less scary than you might think
- why the old-fashioned book index should be the starting point for book APIs
Metadata is everyone's responsibility
Laura Dawson on why metadata is integral to each stage of publishing.
Publishing consultant Laura Dawson says publishers are starting to come around to the importance of metadata, but they still don't quite get it.
Publishers need broader and broader shoulders
From HTML5 to metadata to managing rights, increasingly complex content management issues fall squarely on publishers.
It's more challenging than ever to handle all aspects of content management internally. In this podcast, Firebrand Technologies founder and president Fran Toolan addresses a myriad of content management issues.
Hooked on context
Valla Vakili on Small Demons, contextual discovery and a very different type of metadata.
While some companies try to solve the recommendation problem, Small Demons has other ideas. "Discovery is the ultimate problem we're trying to solve and the ultimate value we're trying to create," says Small Demon's founder and CEO Valla Vakili in this interview.
The digital rights quagmire
Sebastian Posth on the complexity of digital publishing rights.
Digital publishing has stirred up a number of issues that didn't exist in traditional publishing. In this interview, Sebastian Posth, a partner at A2 Electronic Publishing and a speaker at TOC Frankfurt, talks about the unique issues and why the waters are so muddy.
Metadata isn't a chore, it's a necessity
Laura Dawson on how metadata keeps publishers relevant.
Ignoring metadata is akin to chopping a tomato with a butter knife: bad idea. In this interview, Firebrand Technologies content chief Laura Dawson explains why metadata is an integral part of digital publishing.
Standardizing Tags in the Metadata Minefield
One issue we haven't discussed much is that of metadata. XML documents are by definition rife with metadata. At what point does metadata cross the line from useful to pollution? When it's not standardized. The kind of XML tagging we're primarily talking about can be sectioned into three buckets: rights data ("this picture is good for print products but not…