ONIX Files

When submitting your e-book electronically, you will need to email us a zipped archive file that contains your publication in 2 files:

• Content File: The book itself — a .epub file (or .pdf if you don’t have an epub). Named after the ISBN, e.g. 9781784128265.epub
• Metadata File: A description of the book — a .xml file, named after the ISBN, e.g. 9781784128265.xml. This is the metadata — basically a structured info sheet about the book (title, author, publisher, price, description, etc.)

What is ONIX and why does it matter?

The .xml  metadata file can’t just be any XML file. It has to be written in a specific format called ONIX (either version 2.1 or 3.0). ONIX is just an industry-standard template that publishers use so that every retailer/distributor can read book info the same way.

You likely don’t write this by hand; your publishing software (like Biblio, Klopotek, or similar) can usually export it, or your distributor may generate it for you.

If you do not have the publishing software to generate this, we can create it for you.

Information you will need to supply for us to generate the ONIX metadata file for you (under “order notes” at checkout):

• ISBN
• Title & subtitle
• Author name
• Publisher name
• Publication date
• Language
• Format (epub)
• Description/blurb

Once you receive the ONIX file from us, you can then create your zipped archive file as follows:

1. ✅ Add your 9781784128265.xml (ONIX metadata)
2. ✅ Rename your epub to 9781784128265.epub
3. ✅ Zip both into 9781784128265.zip
4. ✅ Submit to the British Library

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