Describe and classify the book
Create the short description
Write and approve a short description of the book (a sentence or two, and a slightly longer version) that will be reused everywhere space is tight.
Why it matters
The short description is the most-copied piece of text about the book, and it is usually the only one a busy buyer, librarian, or journalist reads. It also tends to be the one that was written first and never updated, so a stale short description can misdescribe the book for years.
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 and reuses
- When
- Six to nine months before publication, before catalog and metadata deadlines (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 short description is the one- or two-sentence version of the book that appears in catalogs, wholesaler feeds, newsletters, award entries, and anywhere a listing shows a snippet before the full description. In ONIX metadata it is a distinct field from the long description. Most publishers keep two lengths: a single sentence (around 25 to 50 words) and a short paragraph (around 100 words).
If a publisher writes it, usually starting from the catalog copy or the sales tip sheet, ask to see it, check it for accuracy and tone, and request the exact text so your website and your own outreach use the same words. Whoever writes it, agree who may change it. If it falls to you, write it after the long description so it is a distillation rather than a draft, and lead with what the book is and who it is for, not with praise.
Store the approved short description as plain text in the Book Identity Sheet, with a version date, so that every copy pasted from it is the same.
Common mistakes
- Writing the short description as a teaser that withholds what the book is about.
- Leading with a quotation or an award claim instead of the book.
- Leaving the working-title version in the wholesaler feed after the title changed.
- Using formatted text with special characters that break in plain-text fields.
Identifiers for Create the short 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
- A one-sentence version and a roughly 100-word version, both approved.
- The subject, the reader, and what makes the book distinct, in plain words, without superlatives.
- Consistent with the long description, the subject codes, and the cover copy.
- Stored as plain text with a version date; every reuse copied from that stored version.
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