Database Fields

There are numerous fields associated with the books included in our database. These are used so that listings are informative to buyers and to provide them with consistent information from bookseller-to-bookseller.

To list books on the AbeBooks site, the following information fields are required:

FIELD	DESCRIPTION	FIELD LENGTH (MAX. ALLOWABLE CHARACTERS)
BookID	A unique alphanumerical identifier	40
Author - OR-	You may also use two separate fields – i.e. Last Name and First Name (Author or publisher is required – you do not have to include both but one of these two fields is necessary.)	750
Publisher	Name of the book publisher	750
Title	Book Title or Ephemera name	750
Price	Your listing price (numeric only with period allowable for cents)	10
Status (or you may use the Quantity field to indicate status)	To indicate if the book is “For Sale” or “Sold”. E.g. “S” (sold) and “A” (available) or “Y” (yes, available) and “N” (no, sold and not available)	n/a
Book Condition	The state of the book defined in terms of: New, As New, Fine, Very Good, Good, Fair, Poor	30
Quantity (where applicable)	1 (or any positive number) will add a new book to online inventory while 0 will remove an existing book listing. If you are sending an update where the number of books has changed (e.g. You had 10 books available but now only have 4.), the new quantity data will overwrite the existing data but will not add another book record - the listing will remain online as it was.	3

While not required, the following data fields are currently accepted and are recommended by AbeBooks:

FIELD	DESCRIPTION	FIELD LENGTH (MAX. ALLOWABLE CHARACTERS)
Place	Location of publication – city and/or country	80
Year	Year of publication	4
Jacket	Indicates if a dust jacket is present or not. E.g. “Y” (yes) or “N” (no) or “1” for yes and “2” for no.	n/a
Jacket (text)	Text indicating presence of dust jacket. E.g. Original dust jacket. Condition may also be included.	30
Binding	Is the book hardcover or paperback? E.g. “H” (hardcover) or “S” (soft cover).	n/a
Binding (text)	Text describing type of binding. E.g. Paperback	30
Edition (1st)	Flag indicating a first edition. E.g. “Y” for yes, it is a first or “N” for no, it’s not a first edition.	n/a
Edition (text)	The version of the publication. E.g. 1st Edition, 6th Edition	40
Signed	Is the book signed by the author? E.g. yes or no	n/a
Signed (text)	Signature described. E.g. Signed by Author / Signed by Illustrator.	50
Catalog	Subject heading used to group or categorize like books together. Useful for buyers browsing your listings as it allows them to browse by subject. Note: While it is possible to assign more than one catalog to a record, books will be displayed in one catalog only online (the first catalog entered). There is a maximum of 100 catalogs allowable.	100
ISBN	International Standard Book Number. The unique 10 digit code given to books to identify title, publisher, edition and volume number. Usually it is found in the front of a book, on the reverse side of the title page.	15
Illustrator	This field can be used to distinguish the illustrator from the author	255
Size	Dimensions of the book or description such as “oversize”.	50
Book Type	E.g. Large print, audio book, pictorial boards	30
Description	May include condition, notes on any flaws or damage, binding, synopsis of the plot or subject matter, publisher information	4000
Keywords	Description of the subject for buyers performing keyword searches. For example, "Romeo and Juliet" could have Shakespeare, play and love in the keywords.	2000