A conversion, save to disk, or send to device (from within calibre) should write the metadata changes to the ebook file (with calibre's default preferences).
Until one of those three things happens, the metadata changes exist only in calibre's db.
Did you use calibre's "Send to device" to transfer the ebook to your Kindle... or did you just copy it from calibre's library and paste it into the Kindle's Document folder?
The latter would explain why the metadata change didn't "take".
|