Question on some disambiguated author stuff

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

I just realized that a lot of times when I needed to match up a book to a disambiguated author that I was editing one of their other books and just copying their author name over to the new book (or when not yet a goodreads author I was able to snag it there); spacing and everything just fine.

What do you do with a non-primary goodreads author? If they are always one of the additional authors on books, they are not in the copyable primary author field and you cannot edit the profile to see.

Do you just keep adding spaces until book shows with correct author?

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

And, I think these author names are wrong ones. Did not want to edit without input because recently goodreads staff have stepped in on some similar titles, abbreviations, and punctuation in author names and made exceptions.

So wanted to make sure I wasn't getting in the middle of one of those discussion rounds (the author I was working on had five spaces between first and last name so would not be shocked if the PTB tried something different):

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/... (actually that's not how listed on book cover, on cover it's clearly a degree or title after author name).

[Emy]

Look wrong to me too... Watching this space!

[Banjomike]

The Pt one is probably this one, 2 spaces, not a GR author
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

So, when no way to clip from primary author or author profile, does everyone else just keep adding spaces until it matches to correct author?

[vicki_girl]

Debbie (Debbie Rice) wrote: "What do you do with a non-primary goodreads author? If they are always one of the additional authors on books, they are not in the copyable primary author field and you cannot edit the profile to see.

Do you just keep adding spaces until book shows with correct author?"

That's one option. Here's what I usually do...

I open a new tab and search on the author name. I find one of the disambiguate names that is not a GR author. I go to the author page and select edit. On the right near the bottom, there is a link for "similar names". Clicking this link gives all the authors with similar names, and the number of spaces used in their name. I leave this tab open until I am done cleaning up that name.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

I did edit profile for non-gr jim johnson, but, when I looked at "similar names" I could not spot the spaces. It had lots of Jim Johnsons and Jimmie, Jimmy, etc. maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

This author looks like a wrong one also.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...

[Banjomike]

Debbie (Debbie Rice) wrote: "This author looks like a wrong one also.

http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/..."

Added him to the 2-space chap.

[vicki_girl]

Debbie (Debbie Rice) wrote: "I did edit profile for non-gr jim johnson, but, when I looked at "similar names" I could not spot the spaces. It had lots of Jim Johnsons and Jimmie, Jimmy, etc. maybe I was looking in the wrong ..."

See the circled items in the screencap:

http://www.goodreads.com/photo/user/1...

[Debbie's Spurts (D.A.)]

Duh....duh...duh...I honestly never saw it there.

So glad I asked. Doesn't happen that often, usually when it's not the right author one more space fixes it. In the above cases, though, I went up to 5 spaces trying to get the right fit.

Yay! now I know! Thank you very much!