Checklist for publishers

Here is a list of things to check to ensure that publications are correctly delivered to the various booksellers.

Documenting metadata

We encourage publishers to document as much metadata as possible to help booksellers promote or categorize books. The sections below provide groupings of metadata, depending on their intended use. At a minimum, you should document the metadata in the Mandatory metadata and Essential Metadata for Sales sections.

Mandatory metadata

• File (PDF or EPUB)

• Unique identifier (ISBN, EAN, internal key)

• Full title, exactly as it appears on the title page

Essential metadata for sales

All mandatory metadata, plus:

• Sales prices by country of interest

• Name of the author(s)

• Abstract

• File protection (none, watermark, lock)

• At least one BISAC category

• Language of publication

• Release date of the EPUB format

• In the case of an EPUB file, make sure you do not get an error message in EPUBCheck (version 4.2.6)

Specific to Apple

• All images must be in RGB mode (not CMYK) 

• URIs (Uniform Resource Identifiers) must contain only properly encoded alphanumeric characters

• All files included in the EPUB file must be listed in the manifest (OPF file)

• Only UTF-8 and UTF-16 encodings are allowed in EPUB files

Conditions for sale

The following conditions must be met for a reseller to sell publications:

• the organization profile is set to Active with online sales;

• the publications are online and available for sale;

• a price has been documented for each of the countries of interest;

• a price has been documented for each of the formats (PDF and/or EPUB).