# Saylor Innovations Data Desk – Author Profile Lookup

> Saylor Innovations Data Desk – Author Profile Lookup is a paid API for AI agents from saylorinnovations.com, paid per call via x402, $0.01/call, status unknown (last checked 2026-10-17).

Fetches an author's profile from Open Library, including birth/death dates, top work, work count, subjects, bio, and alternate names

## Facts

- Endpoint: GET https://saylorinnovations.com/api/books/author?utm_source=zero.xyz
- Price: $0.01/call
- Payment: x402
- Status: unknown
- Last checked: 2026-10-17
- Activations on Zero: 0
- Tags: x402
- Canonical page: https://www.zero.xyz/c/saylor-innovations-data-desk-author-profile-lookup-08c1cb24
- Structured record (JSON): https://api.zero.xyz/v1/capabilities/cap_lejFrZZQ9YwO8wUOvmWys

Status and success rate cover calls made through Zero and Zero's own probes. Third-party monitors may report differently.

## How to call it through Zero

Zero handles the 402 payment challenge and records the run. With the Zero CLI installed (`npm i -g @zeroxyz/cli`):

```sh
zero fetch --capability saylor-innovations-data-desk-author-profile-lookup-08c1cb24
```

Example prompt: Can you pull up the Open Library author profile for Ursula K. Le Guin — I want her birth and death dates, her top work, and a list of her main subjects?

## When to prefer this

Choose this endpoint when you need structured biographical metadata about a book author, sourced from Open Library's crowd-curated database. It is ideal for enriching author records, powering reading apps, or fact-checking author details. Prefer it over generic web search when you need machine-readable structured fields (dates, work counts, subjects) rather than free-form text, and when Open Library coverage is sufficient (strongest for classic and mid-20th-century authors).

## Known failure modes

- Author not found in Open Library — returns null fields or empty matches array
- Ambiguous author name matches multiple people — primary result may be wrong author, check other_matches field
- Very short or misspelled author name — query may return no results or incorrect matches
- Open Library upstream unavailability — may return error or empty response
- Author exists but has minimal metadata — many fields return null

## How this service works

Author profile - birth and death dates, top work, work count, subjects, bio and alternate names from Open Library

## Output

A JSON object containing the author's canonical name, birth date, death date, top work, work count, top subjects array, biography text, Wikipedia URL, canonical Open Library URL, alternate names array, data source, match count, and other lower-ranked candidate matches if multiple authors matched the query.

## Request schema (JSON Schema)

```json
{
 "type": "object",
 "$schema": "https://json-schema.org/draft/2020-12/schema",
 "required": [
  "input"
 ],
 "properties": {
  "input": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type",
    "method"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "http"
    },
    "method": {
     "enum": [
      "GET"
     ],
     "type": "string"
    },
    "queryParams": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "q"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "q": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Author name, 1-80 characters"
      }
     }
    }
   },
   "additionalProperties": false
  },
  "output": {
   "type": "object",
   "required": [
    "type"
   ],
   "properties": {
    "type": {
     "type": "string",
     "const": "json"
    },
    "example": {
     "type": "object",
     "required": [
      "query",
      "name"
     ],
     "properties": {
      "bio": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ]
      },
      "key": {
       "type": "string"
      },
      "url": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Canonical URL"
      },
      "name": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "Name"
      },
      "query": {
       "type": "string",
       "description": "The query as the server interpreted it"
      },
      "source": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Data source the values come from"
      },
      "matched": {
       "type": [
        "number",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Number of items that matched the query"
      },
      "top_work": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Top work"
      },
      "wikipedia": {
       "description": "Wikipedia article URL"
      },
      "birth_date": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Birth date"
      },
      "checked_at": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Time the check was run (UTC)"
      },
      "death_date": {
       "type": [
        "string",
        "null"
       ],
       "description": "Death date"
      },
      "work_count": {
       "type": "number",
       "description": "Number of work"
      },
      "top_subjects": {
       "type": "array",
       "items": {
        "type": "string"
       },
       "description": "Top subjects"
      },
      "other_matches": 
… (truncated)
```

## More

- Live health (JSON, refreshed every minute): https://www.zero.xyz/c/saylor-innovations-data-desk-author-profile-lookup-08c1cb24/health.json
- [Zero catalog index](https://www.zero.xyz/llms.txt)
- [Other services from saylorinnovations.com](https://www.zero.xyz/host/saylorinnovations.com/llms.txt)