The Perseus Book Group and R. R. Donnelley have reached an agreement designed to improve the management and distribution of the metadata of Perseus titles and those of its 600 publisher distribution clients.
The new joint metadata platform will launch initially at Faber Factory Powered by Constellation, a separate joint venture between Perseus and the U.K. house Faber & Faber, which provides digital services to UK publishers. Under the new agreement, management of a title’s metadata will be handled by Perseus’s BookMap platform, while the optimization and distribution of metadata to book retailers and other third party vendors will be done by Donnelley’s Libre Digital unit and its Harvest platform.
“In today’s digital marketplace, the effective use of metadata can be a critical enabler of discovery and sales.” said Perseus Books CEO David Steinberger. “Working together with Donnelley, we are ready to take our metadata capabilities to the next level.”
According Perseus and R.R. Donnelly, BookMap and Harvest working in conjunction will allow publishers to change e-book pricing quickly, making it easier to participate in retailer-specific promotions. The platforms will also allow publishers to utilize local currencies, quickly adopt new pricing strategies and deliver daily data feeds and updates to retailers. The new agreement is also said to simplify inbound and outbound data delivery through Onix, including retailers using Onix 3.0
Following the Faber Factory pilot program, the new joint metadata platform will be gradually rolled out to all Perseus imprints, and eventually all of Perseus distribution units including Consortium, Legato, Perseus distribution, Perseus Academic, and PGW, and the more 600 independent presses they distribute.
"The unique makeup of The Perseus Books Group is an ideal fit for the Harvest platform,” said Tyler Ruse of LibreDigital. “We are focused on flexibility and scale, and are excited to bring both to this relationship.”
