Title registration - give your publications reach
Metadata sells books. Entry into the VLB and the complete recording and comprehensive maintenance of your metadata as part of a permanent contractual relationship with MVB GmbH is the basis for marketing your publications successfully.
Additionally, when it comes to the fees for registering your title in the VLB, the better the data supplied to the VLB, the lower the price. The current price model was developed in collaboration with industry representatives in the meta database task force.
Title registrations can be performed online at www.vlb.de and via data exchange format ONIX. Since VLB data meets the current industry standard, they can be transferred to other partners at any time. With the notification to the VLB, a notification is also automatically sent to the German National Library.
You can register the following products with the VLB:
- Books (German and foreign-language titles)
- E-books
- Calendars
- Audio books
- Cards
- DVDs, videos
- Software
- Sheet music titles (with ISMN)
- Non-book articles (with GTIN)
Title registration online
You can access the web application at www.vlb.de at any time with your personal access data. Here you can view your title inventory and carry out new registrations of titles as well as changes to your titles.
Title registration via ONIX or Excel
ONIX International is a standard data format for the exchange of bibliographic and product data. You can notify your titles to the VLB directly in ONIX format via an ftp server.
You do not work with ONIX? You also have the option of registering title data and carrying out changes for a larger number of titles using Excel. You will find all the information on the options for delivering data to the VLB on our help pages.
Prices
The fees for the title registration are per title and calendar year. The calculation always takes place retrospectively for the calendar year in which a title is or was listed in the VLB. The better the data supplied to VLB by the publishing house, the lower the fee. The price model provides for three categories of data quality: gold, silver, bronze. You can find more information on data quality here.
Annual minimum fee
| Status of all titles | Prices |
|---|---|
| All titles in gold category | 69,00 € |
| At least one title not in gold category | 99,00 € |
One to approximately 16 titles can be registered within the annual minimum fee. Once the minimum fee has been reached, settlement per title and year takes place at the following prices:
Title registration fee
| Age of the title | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3 years | 3,00 € | 4,40 € | 5,85 € |
| 4-14 years | 2,60 € | 3,85 € | 5,20 € |
| older than 14 years | 2,10 € | - | 4,60 € |
| Advance notification (publication date in the future) | 3,00 € | - | - |
Title registration fee for derived e-books
| Age of the title | Gold | Silver | Bronze |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1-3 years | 0,95 € | 1,40 € | 1,95 € |
| 4-14 years | 0,65 € | 1,05 € | 1,70 € |
| older than 14 years | 0,40 € | - | 1,50 € |
| Advance notification (publication date in the future) | 0,95 € | - | - |
Registration fee for collection heads
| Collection head | Price |
|---|---|
| Hierarchy and Serie head independent of age | 3,00 € |
Quality status and age are key to deciding the level of the title registration fee. The status as of the key date for settlement on 31 December is decisive for the level of the charge. All prices plus VAT.
Please notice our terms and conditions for VLB and GTC of MVB GmbH
Price-relevant fields and quality status
Based on the results of a survey conducted among bookshops and publishing firms as well as in collaboration with representatives of all three divisions of the industry, the following fields were defined as relevant to status and thus affecting the price:
- Availability (this information must be confirmed in each quarter)
- Author/copyright owner
- Cover
- Product language
- Indication of scope
- Indexing
- Main description
- Topic classification
- country of origin
- customs tariff number
- From 2025: ISNI or ORCID
If a field relevant to status is not maintained for a title, this title is declassified from the highest category gold to the category silver. In the event of two or more missing fields, the title transfers to the bronze category. Importance is assigned to maintaining the availability information. If this detail is not confirmed once per quarter for a published title, the title is automatically assigned to the bronze category.
Lower title registration fees for older titles
In addition to the fields relevant to status, the age of a title in the form of three age classes (1-3 years, 4-14 years and 15 years and older) is also considered for the title registration fee. In this way, pressure is taken off the backlist titles that tend to generate lower sales. The price of EUR 2.00 for titles of 15 years and older applies independently of the data quality but only if the availability information is up-to-date. If a current confirmation is missing for the availability information, the price increases to EUR 4.40
The annual minimum fee
There is a minimum fee for publishing firms with a low title scope in the VLB.
The minimum fee is
- EUR 69.00 when all the titles belong to the gold category and the total of the registration fees is less than EUR 69.
- EUR 99.00 when one or several titles do not belong to the gold category and the total of the registration fees is less than EUR 99.
Transfer of ISBN / title inventories and sub-inventories
Should it be necessary for various reasons to transfer individual titles or complete ISBN title inventories from one publishing firm (source publishing firm) to another publishing firm (target publishing firm), the MVB can be mandated to perform the transfer of the titles. If there are more than 50 transferred titles per year, a transfer fee is charged to the account of the target publishing firm together with the annual VLB title fee.
The transfer can be performed in the following cases:
- Transfer within a group of companies (e.g. imprint)
- Fusion/amalgamation (inspection by ISBN agency, if applicable)
- Transfer for sale purposes (in the case of relinquishment of the publishing business activity of the source publishing firm – inspection by ISBN agency, if applicable)
- Other reasons
If the source publishing house ends its publishing activity and hands over its title inventory, the annual VLB title fee is immediately charged to its account by final account for its titles indexed in the VLB up to the time of the transfer. The transferred titles and any transfer fee are charged to the target publishing firm’s account by means of the regular annual invoice of the VLB title fees.
If you wish to mandate the MVB with the transfer of titles, please use the form provided for this.
The current prices of our price list, as amended, and the current terms and conditions apply – here in particular point 9. Active titles can be transferred as well as an archive inventory.
Price scale for transfer lump sum:
| Number of titles | Price |
| 1-50 | free of charge |
| 51-250 | EUR 100.00 |
| 251-500 | EUR 200.00 |
| each further 500 titles | EUR 150.00 |
Frequently asked questions
In order to provide you with comprehensive information, we have compiled the answers to the most frequently asked questions about price models and data fields in the VLB for you.
