[Ryn]

First off, I'm sorry to barge in like this with post count all-of-1, but I've been in lurk mode for quite some time and I just couldn't restrain myself any longer.

With today's myriad options of obtaining eBooks, discoverability is an obvious boon. As with web properties, metadata may play a key role in this process. Title, author, genre, publisher, language and even subject and description seem logical candidates for enhancement.

The subject tag clearly lends itself to keyword stuffing, but how do the different marketplaces respond to this? Do they even process/read/spider the subject tag? Do they penalize obvious mischaracterizations?

The description tag can be used for the backcover text, praise, introduction, or a short summary that tells the marketplace exactly who this publication is aimed at.

I'd like this thread to be a developing compendium of some of the wisdom on the subject of metadata that is present within this community. By exploring our common wisdom we can help improve the ePub standard while at the same time perhaps selling more books. Moreover, by being aware of the developmental distance between ePub and html proper, we can explore ways in which publishers and creators of eBooks are able to wrest back some control from almighty Amazon and Apple.

I would like to invite everyone to share:
* current thinking on the OPF metadata tags
* ways to tweak individual tag data
* experiences with metadata manipulation
* our understanding of how metatags influence discovery
* possible best practices suggestions

Thanks for not tl/dr'ing!