Metadata and sales data and the connections between the two

Nielsen is both the largest aggregator of sales data in the world and one of the leading bibliographic data providers. They see more clearly than most when poor metadata costs publishers sales and they see clearly that online sales channels are even more severely impacted by poor metadata than brick-and-mortar sales are. They are in the process of creating a new global ebook sales reporting service as well.

In this session, Jonathan Nowell, who runs Nielsen’s book operations worldwide, will tell publishers about the state of metadata (hint: not as good anywhere as it should be and not as good outside the US and the UK as it is in those two markets), how it is costing them sales, and what fixes are most urgent for them to make to stop those losses. Nowell will also talk about the need for global ebook sales reporting and how Nielsen expects publishers to benefit when their service is rolled out in the near future.

Jonathan Nowell
President, Nielsen Book

Jonathan Nowell is President of the Nielsen Book, a subsidiary of Nielsen. Nielsen Book is the leading provider of product information, ecommerce and measurement analytics to the Book industry globally and operates under the BookData, BookNet and BookScan brands.

Jonathan also chairs the Book Industry Communication (BIC) operations board in the UK and is a board director of BISG (Book Industry Study Group) in the US. Jonathan has worked in the book and broader publishing industry for most of his career.