Describe and classify the book
Create the long description
Write and approve the full book description that will appear on retail pages, the publisher's site, and library records.
Why it matters
This is the text that converts a browser into a buyer or a librarian into a purchaser, and it is copied by systems you will never see. If it is vague, wrong, or stale at the source, it is vague, wrong, or stale everywhere. Getting one good version approved and stored means every later fix is a paste, not a rewrite.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Publisher and Author. Publisher usually drafts; author reviews for accuracy and reuses
- When
- Six to nine months before publication, before the first metadata feed and catalog deadline (Describe and classify the book: twelve to six months before publication, and before any preorder opens)
Your part changes with your publishing route.
How to do it
The full walkthrough
The long description is the main descriptive text for the book: typically 150 to 300 words for fiction and up to 400 or so for nonfiction, though platforms set their own limits. It appears on retail product pages, in library vendor records, on the publisher's book page, and in review copy platforms. It is sent in the ONIX metadata feed, and many retailers display exactly what arrives there.
If someone else writes it, usually a publisher adapting jacket copy, ask to see it before the metadata goes out, correct any factual errors, check that it describes the book that was actually written rather than the book that was pitched, and ask for the exact text so your own site uses the same words rather than a paraphrase. If you write it, open with the book and not the author, say who it is for and what they will get, and keep the paragraphs short, because retail pages are read on phones. Either way, avoid claims you cannot support and reviews that do not exist yet, and use any formatting the platform allows sparingly.
Store the approved text as plain text in the Book Identity Sheet with a version date. When it is revised (a new endorsement, a corrected fact), update the sheet first and then every place it appears.
Common mistakes
- Starting with the author's credentials instead of the book.
- Describing an earlier draft, a working title, or a chapter that was cut.
- Writing for a print catalog and never adapting for a phone screen.
- Editing the description on one retailer's page without updating the source, so the next feed overwrites the fix.
- Padding with adjectives that a reader cannot verify.
Identifiers for Create the long description
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| ONIX for Books ONline Information eXchange: the standard file that carries your book's details from your publisher or platform out to retailers and libraries. | If your subtitle is wrong at one retailer, that is one mistake; if it is wrong at a retailer, in a library catalog, and on Google Books, that is usually not three mistakes but one, in the feed, copied three times. It also explains why correcting it in one store often does not stick, because the next feed writes the old value back over your correction. Nobody acts on the feed directly: traditionally and hybrid published authors normally find out who owns it, which is the publisher's metadata or operations team and sometimes a separate distributor, and send corrections there, while a self-published book's feed is generated by the platform from the fields you filled in on its dashboard. Find the person or team that owns the book's feed so a correction goes to the source that can keep it fixed. | Nothing to record |
What done looks like
- One approved long description within the limits of the platforms it will appear on.
- The first sentence says what the book is; the reader and the payoff appear in the first paragraph.
- Facts, names, and dates in the description verified against the manuscript.
- Consistent with the short description, the subject codes, and the cover copy.
- Stored as plain text with a version date, and updated at the source before anywhere else.
Ask your publisher
Copy this into an email. Replace the bracketed parts with your details.
Sources and last checked
- Official source
- No single official page for this step.
- Last checked
- Not checked against its source yet.
- How confident we are
- Verified