If you write books, a clear online identity helps readers and search engines connect you to your work. Author schema markup does this by describing the writer with a Person, each book with a Book and linking them together. This guide shows how.
The two entities
- Person: the author, with name, job title, a short description and official profiles. Create it with the Person schema generator.
- Book: each title, with name, ISBN, number of pages, language, publisher and where to buy it. Create it with the Book schema generator.
How to link them
The Book points to its author with the author property, and the Person can point to the book with the workExample or subjectOf properties. Give each entity an identifier so the references stay clean, as explained in linked schema markup with @id.
{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@graph": [
{
"@type": "Person",
"@id": "https://www.example.com/#author",
"name": "Jane Example",
"jobTitle": "Author",
"sameAs": ["https://www.linkedin.com/in/jane-example"]
},
{
"@type": "Book",
"@id": "https://www.example.com/books/my-book/#book",
"name": "My Book Title",
"author": { "@id": "https://www.example.com/#author" },
"inLanguage": "en",
"isbn": "9780000000000"
}
]
}Where to place the markup
- Put the Person on the author’s main page, the entity home described in what is a Google entity home.
- Put each Book on the page that presents that title.
- Use the same name and description on your site, your publisher page and your retailer profiles.
Add the profiles that prove it
List the author’s pages on bookstores, library catalogues and reading communities in the sameAs property, following the rules in the sameAs property explained. These profiles are the evidence that the author and the books are real and related. When you are done, test the code with the schema markup validator and read how it supports a stronger presence in brand SERP: how to control what Google shows for your name.