This guide walks through the various ways a Catalog Administrator can update their marketing content, aka title descriptions in Edelweiss. It can be done manually, via a simple Excel file import, through ONIX, or a Product_Descriptions ancillary feed sent via FTP.

Before we begin, here’s a quick translation of the description abbreviations you may see in Edelweiss:

Sum = Summary/Overview Description; this is the long description for the title

Bio = Contributor Biography

Quo = Quotes and are treated the same as Reviews

Exc = Excerpts

Mkg = Marketing Plans

KSP = Key Selling Points

KNT = Keynote:  this is typically a quick sales pitch. It will appear bolded, at the top of the Summary field when viewing a title outside of Title Administration

FEA = Feature Points:  these will appear when a given title is Featured — either by the Catalog Admin or the Rep — in the Featured Title Banner above a title listing

UPE = Unpublished Endorsements, including comments that haven’t been officially published anywhere. These might include bookseller reviews and endorsements from the author’s mother.

TOC = Table of Contents

Each description field is virtually unlimited.

Ways to Update Title Descriptions

Manually, title-by-title

1) While in Administrative mode, drill into the Title Administration window, either via the Manage Titles edit grid, or through a catalog’s list view by drilling into an individual title’s tools icon, to find the Marketing Content screen. There, you can access all title descriptions for a given listing. Yellow stars appear next to attributes when content has been saved for them.

If you aren’t sending us title descriptions, or marketing content, via ONIX or Excel, then it’s safe for you to edit/update them here. As you can see, you have access to various formatting options, along with the ability to insert a hyperlink or image. Be sure to click the Save/disk icon to the upper left of the text editor box before moving on to another description type or attribute.

Shown below is the Manage Titles grid where you can access / edit individual title’s Sum(mary), Bio(Notes), Quo(tes), Exc(erpts), Mkg/Marketing Plans, KSP (Key Selling Points, Fea(ture Points), Key(notes), UPE/Unpublished Endorsements, or TOC(Table of contents) via distinct hyperlinks. When you click a particular box or checkmark, you’ll be taken directly to that title’s attribute. This is also where you access the Import Descriptions utility.

• If you click on a green checkmark, you’ll see your market’s current description, which you may edit / update.
• If you click on a yellow alert sign the text box will be blank, as the description is coming from another market. If you add content here, it will replace the (currently displayed) default, fallback content, for the market you’re in now. If you hover over the yellow sign, it will show you which market the content is coming from.

Import Descriptions Excel File Upload

Using a very simple, two-column spreadsheet is the quickest, most immediate way to update many title descriptions at once.

1) From the Manage Titles catalog edit grid, when you click on the Import Descriptions download icon here. You’ll see this screen:

2) Click on the Example Excel File Format link here to obtain a simple template to use, or create your own. It should only contain two columns:

• #1: ISBN – this can be the ISBN-10 or ISBN-13 of the title, preferably without hyphens
• #2: Description – Each file should only contain one specific type of description (e.g. just title Summaries or Key Selling Points). Be sure to include all HTML and style coding to indicate bullet points, line breaks, and any special formatting, and paragraph opener/closers. Broken HTML, especially when there is no paragraph closer included, is the leading cause of Print/PDF issues where a description abruptly cuts off or the next title fails to appear.

3) Choose your file and click Import

You will receive a confirmation if the upload was successful. The Advanced option here allows you to Convert End-Of-Line Characters To HTML <br/> Tags, thereby ensuring new line breaks will appear. Try it out!