On last May 28, Ink it forged a strategic alliance with Metabooks Mexico “so that books become visible”. With this agreement, Ink it users are now able to standardize their metadata for the betterment of e-book commerce and search algorithms among publishers, stores, and readers. This new and efficient system will, undoubtedly, help boost sales.
The CEO of Ink it, Diego Echeverría, comments on this partnership: “We are constantly looking for alliances that add value to the services we offer to our publishers who are present in more than eleven countries around the world. We have been working along Metabooks for a while now, a platform that manages metadata. Our alliance arises with the purpose of easing and speeding up metadata migration between both companies”.
It is through this interconnection that users that choose to distribute their books and audiobooks via Ink it, will enjoy a seamless experience. In just one click, publishers can upload and visualize all data in our system that emcompasses 50 retail stores in 80 countries, including leading ecommerce sites like Apple, Amazon, Kobo, Barnes & Noble, Google Play, and the prestigious Mexican bookstores Gandhi and Porrúa. To this day, we are Apple’s only preferred partner of the Spanish-speaking world.
According to Carlos Rojas Urrutia, General Manager at Metabooks Mexico, this is important because “[…] the more metadata is linked to a book, the more chances has a bookseller, reader, or distributor to match their interests with a specific book based on its contents”. He adds: “Metadata is to digital books what shop windows are to physical books. If this strategy is well executed, it allows books to be always on display for potential readers”.*
Metabooks Mexico is a subsidiary of the German Verzeichnis Lieferbarer Bücher (VLB), which is a book database created by MVB (provider of digital services, information on the German book industry, and the Frankfurt Book Fair). Since 2017, Metabooks has ventured into the Latin American market, particularly in Brazil, where, to this day, manages 75% of the Brazilian publishing industry metadata.*
What is metadata? A news story published by Mexican newspaper Milenio states that metadata is the information about a book independent from its content. It doesn’t include exclusively information you could find in cataloguing data, but rather includes additional information that may be useful for booksellers and distributors for their selection process and sales, such as promotional phrases, sneak peeks, press reviews, interviews with the author, or booktrailers.
With this alliance, Ink it endorses its commitment to our customers to not only provide top-quality products and services, but also assist them in their publishing projects.
*Alejo Santiago, Jesús. (2019, December 13). Metabooks: La herramienta digital eleva visibilidad del libro en internet, en Milenio. Retrieved from: https://www.milenio.com/cultura/literatura/metabooks-herramienta-digital-eleva-visibilidad-libro-internet