You didn’t become a writer to manage metadata.
You became a writer to tell stories. To explore new worlds. To dig into characters and ideas. And somewhere along the way, someone—maybe Amazon, maybe your formatter, maybe a checklist from a course—told you that you also needed keywords. BISAC codes. Trim sizes. Author names exactly matching your store dashboard. ISBNs. Page counts.
Suddenly, the job wasn’t just writing. It was data entry. And worse, the tools you were given made it harder than it needed to be.
Let’s fix that.
MetaShelf exists because we believe authors deserve better than spreadsheets, outdated dashboards, and duct-taped file folders. You’re not running a hobby—you’re building a catalog. And catalogs run on metadata.
But that doesn’t mean you need to become a metadata expert.
It means your tools need to be good enough that you don’t have to.
So what is metadata, really?
Metadata is simply structured information about your book. It answers questions like:
- What’s the title?
- Who wrote it?
- What genre does it fall under?
- Is it part of a series?
- Is it available in print, ebook, audio?
- What’s the page count? Word count? ISBN?
And here’s the part nobody talks about: the reason metadata feels painful isn’t because it’s complicated. It’s because you’ve had to enter it again and again across different platforms, formats, and files—with no central source of truth.
You upload a book to Amazon, then to Kobo. Then to IngramSpark. Then to your website. Every time, you’re starting from scratch—or copying and pasting from a messy doc. Did you update the subtitle in all four places? Is the author bio consistent? Did you remember to check that one “adult content” box that’s buried three tabs deep?
That’s not a workflow. That’s a tax on your creativity.
Metadata is not a checklist. It’s a system.
Most author tools treat metadata like a form to fill out. A one-time task before hitting “publish.”
But real publishing—especially as an indie author—is dynamic. You change your mind. You launch in stages. You revise blurbs. You translate, update covers, release new editions. Your book evolves. So your metadata has to evolve too.
MetaShelf treats metadata as a living system. When you enter your book’s details, you’re not just filling out a form. You’re building a relational record—one that knows how your formats, editions, translations, and series all connect.
Change your book title? It updates everywhere. Add a new language edition? It links itself to the original. Update your keywords? All formats reflect it.
You shouldn’t have to think about it. That’s the point.
Authors hate metadata because they’ve never seen it done right.
We don’t blame you. You’ve been asked to do a publishing professional’s job—with none of the support or structure they get inside a publishing house. Meanwhile, the platforms you use are stuck in the early 2000s. They assume you’ll just keep pasting the same data into every interface. That’s not empowering. That’s exhausting.
MetaShelf is built differently.
We don’t just store your metadata. We understand it.
Your paperback isn’t a separate book from your ebook. It’s a format of the same work. That nuance matters, because it means your book isn’t fragmented across your dashboard. It’s unified. One book, with all its versions tied together—cleanly, logically, beautifully.
Your French translation isn’t a second book either. It’s a translation of the original. And that means it shouldn’t require retyping the same data all over again—it should inherit what it can, and let you adjust only what’s different.
We think like a publisher—but we design for authors.
Everything connected, everything clean.
Here’s how it works.
When you create a new book in MetaShelf, you’re building its central record. You can add its core metadata—title, subtitle, author name, description, keywords, categories, etc.—right away, or piece by piece over time.
From there, you can add formats (like ebook, paperback, hardcover, audio), and translations (like French, Spanish, German, etc.). Each of these pulls from the original and adds only what’s needed: different ISBNs, file links, prices, page counts. No duplication. No chaos.
When you edit the author bio? It updates across every linked format. When you tweak the series title? Every book in the series reflects it.
You’re not maintaining 37 different versions of a blurb. You’re maintaining one.
And that one blurb knows where it belongs.
Designed for real publishing, not one-off launches
MetaShelf isn’t a checklist tool. It’s a catalog brain.
That means whether you have one book or one hundred, the system helps you stay organized, consistent, and confident that every detail is in place. Want to check which books are missing descriptions? Filter and sort. Want to export your entire catalog to use on your website or in a pitch deck? Done.
You no longer need to guess what’s complete or hunt for inconsistencies. The data is structured. The relationships are mapped. And everything is easy to surface when you need it.
Build once. Use everywhere.
Metadata isn’t just about publishing platforms. It powers your website, your marketing, your ads, your sales copy.
By structuring your book information properly, MetaShelf makes it portable. You can plug it into your own store, send it to a formatter, feed it into BookFunnel, or use it to populate a sales page.
We’re building export options, API access, and custom outputs—so the data you create once can be used wherever your book goes next.
You shouldn’t have to retype a blurb. You should be able to copy it once—from the source.
The secret to sanity is structure.
MetaShelf doesn’t try to be everything. It tries to be solid at the part most authors struggle with: keeping your catalog accurate, clean, and manageable as it grows.
Because the truth is, most authors can keep a couple books straight with spreadsheets and memory. But what happens when you hit 5? 10? When you’ve got translations in three languages and formats in four? When you’re preparing a relaunch and can’t remember which books still list your old pen name?
That’s when the cracks show. And that’s exactly what MetaShelf is here to prevent.
You didn’t sign up to be your own publishing assistant.
But with MetaShelf, you don’t need one.
You get the clarity of a production system without the complexity of publishing software. You get structure without rigidity. And you get to manage your books like a pro—without having to become one.
Because great publishing shouldn’t be out of reach. It should be built into the way you work.
