THE Group for Authors! discussion

I uploaded information about an eBook I published through Kindle. When I go to the "edit book" function, it shows a metadata tab. When I click on that, it says no answers have been given. How does one get to the page where one can put in the metadata for a book?

It is found on the book review page. Each user adds their own if they want to when they review the book.

On the book review page make sure you are seeing all the fields and near the date started /ended there should be a link to the meta data page

Thanks, but perhaps I misunderstood the purpose of the metadata fields. I assumed it was something the author filled in to provide more information about the book. However, it seems the only way to add metadata that I can see is to write a review of the book, and since I am its author, that doesn't seem a proper thing to do. Am I correct in assuming the author doesn't add the metadata?

Yes you are correct, it's for each user to add if they want to when reviewing

Thank you.

How about Tags? Can the author provide tags showing for example the various genres that fit the book? Something like magic, pagan, fantasy, supernatural, etc.

Richard wrote: "... that I can see is to write a review of the book, and since I am its author, that doesn't seem a proper thing to do...."

You don't have to actually write a review of the book, just be on the page where you would write the review. If not seeing a choice for metadata, try clicking the options to see more choices. (I'm not completely sure what authors see since my account isn't an author account and I vaguely remember there might be something odd if another author wants to chime in...)

Some authors use their review space as a sort of author's note (some additional info, no star rating done).

Under the metadata is one place authors or others can specify a book's genre among other things. It's less data that displays than data that presumably gets used in the secret-sauce algorithms for things like book recommendations (no clue how important metadata is to that). So, maybe not something you'd want to skip.

Donald wrote: "How about Tags? Can the author provide tags showing for example the various genres that fit the book? Something like magic, pagan, fantasy, supernatural, etc."

The closest to tags you'll get on goodreads is to shelve the book. You can under "My Books" or on the green want to read button's little bookshelf icon on your book page add additional custom shelves. Each shelf name becomes a tag.

Plus, if shelved on a shelf name that feeds into goodreads genres -- once two people shelf/tag it that way (can be yourself plus just one reader) = puts your book in a genre. Including being potentially seen when members explore by genre, explore new releases by genre, emails from gr about that genre ... the shelf names themselves get used by some of the groups (book clubs) here to read a book for various trivia games, challenges and stuff like Bookshelf BINGO.

Most changes take 10 minutes to 72 hours to display so seeing genres and shelves on your book page may take a bit of time (and gr sporadically for reasons known only to them will/won't display shelf names on a book).

To begin with you can access the metadata page for a title from a standard account (I could not find it as a librarian and author) by displaying the title and then clicking on Edit Details.

A standard account only allows the editing of the book's metadata page.
If you are using a librarian author account you will not see this option UNTIL at least ONE standard user has completed that form.
Once that has happened, you will then be able to see the completed data and ADD to it!

It is a bizarre system.