One of the best ways to enhance and increase your sales is to ensure you are providing the best quality metadata (Metadata = the data that provides information about data, the main purpose of which is to facilitate in the discovery of relevant information) The more accurate and consistent your metadata is, the more enhanced your discover-ability options become.
Kobo Writing Life which has always had a “Series Name” field, now allows authors the ability to enter the series number (AKA Volume Number) associated with any books they have written that are part of a series.
Based on the analysis of patterns of reading behavior Kobo is in the process of optimizing sales for books in a series with the desired effect of helping customers read more of the books they love by authors they love in a series they love while helping publishers and authors to continue to grow their sales of those books.
This optimization is based on the raw data that is provided to us by publishers and authors. So the cleaner your data, the better the dynamic and “behind-the-scenes” work we’re doing will work ensuring that the right customers are presented with the right book for a smooth and enjoyable buying and reading experience.
We encourage KWL authors to take a second look at their metadata to make sure that your Series Name values are consistent and that you enter the appropriate numerical value for the books in your series in the Volume Number field.
Here is how this works:
When you are entering or updating a title if you do NOT enter a Series Name then you won’t see the Volume Number field. (See example screen shot below)
However, when you begin to enter your Series Name the Volume Number field will appear. (See below) Please be sure to enter the exact same text in the Series Name field for all books in your series so that they match.
Once you have entered your Series Name, you can then enter a value in the Volume Number (AKA Series Number) for the book (See example screen shot below). This value should be a whole number (ie, “1” and not “one” or “I” — or, for the example we are using, “14” and not “fourteen” or “XIV”). You may also enter 0 which some people might use for a prequel. In additional to being able to enter whole numbers (0, 1, 2, 3, 4), you may enter decimal values such as 1.5 or 2.5 for novellas or stories that take place between two full length novels.
After you enter the Volume Number field and then hit “Save and Continue” or “Save and return to Library” the data will be sent to our database which feeds the website (as per any metadata updates that you make)
The end result that you will see on the item detail page will look something like this, with the numeric value you entered appearing in a distinctive way that informs customers and, very importantly, empowers us with the ability to help customers get to their next great read.
Please note that changes you make typically show up on the item detail page of Kobo’s web store within approximately 24 hours, but often take a bit longer to refresh into the search results list view of those same items due to standard search result caching.