Repeat the post-publication audits
Audit metadata annually
Once a year, for as long as the book is in print, run the full set of listing, profile, and library checks, because systems drift and nobody else is watching a backlist title.
Why it matters
Backlist books sell on their listings, because nobody is promoting them. A listing that has quietly lost its description, its reviews, or its link to your author page is a book that has stopped being found. An annual hour of checking is the entire maintenance cost of keeping a book findable for a decade.
Your part
- What you do
- Verify. Someone else may do it. Inspect the result yourself.
- Who normally owns it
- Author and Publisher. Author audits; publisher corrects feed data
- When
- Annually, near the publication anniversary, for as long as the book is in print (Repeat the post-publication audits: thirty days, ninety days, and then once a year)
How to do it
The full walkthrough
A book stays on sale for years, and during those years its records change without anyone deciding they should. A retailer migrates its database and drops the subtitle. A description is overwritten by an older feed. A new namesake author appears and the profiles merge. The paperback replaces the hardcover as the default listing and the hardcover's reviews vanish. The annual audit catches this.
It is the same procedure as the 30-day and 90-day audits, run once a year on or near the anniversary of publication: retailers, publisher page, Google Books, Goodreads, WorldCat, your own site, search results, and profiles. Compare against last year's results. Add a check of the book page, the bios, and the media kit for anything out of date, and a check that domain, hosting, and email are still renewed.
Traditionally published authors will find that the publisher's attention to a backlist title is limited, which is not a criticism; it is arithmetic. A specific correction request still gets handled. Hybrid authors are in the same position. Self-published authors are the only ones watching, and the annual audit is when they do.
When a new edition or format is released, its own audits start from its own publication date. The annual audit covers everything together.
Common mistakes
- Assuming a book that was correct at 90 days stays correct.
- Checking only the current default format and missing the hardcover that fell off the author page.
- Letting the domain lapse because the renewal notice went to an old address.
- Skipping the audit in the year the next book comes out, which is exactly when the previous book's records are most likely to be disturbed.
Identifiers for Audit metadata annually
Set a status on any record and it joins this step. All book identifiers.
| My status | Identifier | Why this matters | Yours |
|---|---|---|---|
| WorldCat The shared library catalog where member libraries report which books they hold, free for anyone to search. | Catalogers reuse records from here, so an error in one record tends to spread, and a missing record, a duplicate, or one record that mixes two formats makes your book harder for a library to order correctly. No author on any route can edit a record. Traditionally and hybrid published authors normally send the correction to the publisher's metadata team or distributor, and a self-published author normally goes to their platform, or to a library that holds the book and can report the problem. Record the OCLC number for each edition, note any error, and remember that public holdings counts are incomplete and delayed. | Add your OCLC number | |
| Google Books Google's index of book records and previews, often the first thing a reader or librarian sees when they search your title. | Because Google's web search draws on it, a wrong record here is visible to readers and librarians and gets cited in other databases, and an old edition or an advance file left previewable is the version people will read. Corrections go to whoever holds the partner account for the title rather than to the search result: traditionally and hybrid published authors normally ask the publisher or its distributor, once they have established which of the two holds it. If you publish the book yourself, you may hold the account, in which case the fix is yours to make. Search every edition by ISBN, check the core facts, and make sure any preview shows the current file. | Add your Google Books link | |
| Amazon Author Central The free Amazon page where you claim your author name, attach every edition of your books, and write your biography. | Unclaimed, the author page a reader sees is whatever Amazon assembled, and any edition listed under a different spelling of your name sits apart from the rest of your work. Only you can fix that: a publisher cannot claim your author page for you, and the platform account a self-publisher publishes through is a separate login, so the job is identical on all three routes. Amazon's help says author pages are not removed once created, so use exactly the name that appears on your books rather than creating a second page you would rather not have. You're done when one author page carries the right name and every edition and format is attached to it. | Add your Amazon author page link |
What done looks like
- The full audit checklist run annually near the publication anniversary, with results compared to the previous year.
- Every edition and format checked, including older ones that are no longer the default listing.
- Profiles, library records, and search results included.
- Site, bios, media kit, domain, and email renewals reviewed at the same time.
- Specific corrections requested where needed, and the audit date recorded.
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