Electronic Data FeedsElectronic marketing is handled for SPU by SPU's parent company Independent Publishers Group (IPG). IPG has a title database that contains specifications, descriptions, author information, reviews, and cover images for every title that it sells This mass of information is continuously updated and automatically sent, including e-books, once a week, in electronic form, to more than 90 bookselling organizations. Online booksellers such as Amazon, BarnesandNoble.com, and many more, immediately put this information up on their sites. All of the larger chains and wholesalers also rely on this data for ordering and reordering. Such data feeds are technically very demanding and expensive to provide. In most cases, information must be converted to ONIX, and each recipient has special requirements as to how the data must be formatted, but the ability to provide this data gives SPU-distributed titles an important marketing edge.
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