Book Author Name vs. Common Use Author Name

[Ken]

Hello, my name is Ken Rubin and I am the author of the book Essential Scrum: A Practical Guide to the Most Popular Agile approach.

When my book was published I used my formal name of Kenneth S. Rubin. My Goodreads profile is associated with this formal name. However, no one knows me by that name. People most often refer to me as Ken Rubin or Kenny Rubin. My general preference would be to change my profile name to be Ken Rubin and have that profile be the author profile for Essential Scrum.

I am guessing that is not possible to have my profile name not identically match my book author name. If that is true, is there anyway to have an alias author name point to the book? When people come to Goodreads and want to find my book they are likely to search for Ken Rubin, which will show them books by another author with that name.

So, I am looking for what options I have to deal with the discrepancy between formal name on book and common-usage name that people will use when searching.

Any assistance would be appreciated.

Thanks,
Ken

[Banjomike]

We use the name that appears on the front of the book. If we don't do that then someone will re-add the book using the name that appears on the front and we end up with duplicates.

As far as I know we don't have a system which would let you have a profile unless there is a book on it. An author profile with no books on it simply doesn't get picked up by the search engine. So if your Goodreads profile used Ken or Kenny it would actually be invisible to the system while the unwanted Kenneth profile would show up.

If you have an edition of your book which was published as Ken Rubin or Kenny Rubin then that would be very different. Is there such an edition or indeed ANY published work with Ken or Kenny?

Goodreads is very picky about not using well-known names in lieu of covernames. Authors like Lord Byron and Sir Peter Scott, and many others don't get to use their best known names. They don't get to use their covernames either but that is also a different matter.

Note: there are already two authors named "Ken Rubin" on Goodreads.

[Ken]

Thanks for the additional details. I appreciate the response. Unfortunately, there is no edition of my book published under Ken or Kenny Rubin.

I was jut hoping that there might be a way in the author profile to specify "alias" names and that when someone did a search that match one of the alias names it would take them to my existing profile under Kenneth S. Rubin. Sounds like such a facility does not exist.

[Banjomike]

An AKA or alias function has been on the cards for-absolutely-EVER.

See message #2 from 2007
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

or
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Ken]

Thanks for pointing this out. What a shame that after 6 years the AKA or alias feature has not been implemented. It would seem to be quite a useful feature with a number of important use scenarios.

Thanks again for your time!

[Martyn]

I use Martyn V. Halm on my books:


but my profile says Martyn Halm, not Martyn V. Halm. Can that be fixed?

[Banjomike]

Martyn wrote: "I use Martyn V. Halm on my books:


but my profile says Martyn Halm, not Martyn V. Halm. Can that be fixed?"

That was quick... anyway someone saw it and did it.
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

[rivka, Former Moderator]

Ken, while it's not possible to have the author profile have your shortened name, you can make it be what shows up for you as a user (on your posts and your bookshelves and so on). Just edit your name on your user profile (NOT your author profile), right here: http://www.goodreads.com/user/edit

[Ken]

Thanks, just did it...

[Martyn]

Banjomike wrote: "That was quick... anyway someone saw it and did it."

Actually, it's still not fixed. If you hover over my name on this post, you'll see Martyn Halm, not Martyn V. Halm, despite that my name is correctly spelled in my profile. Also, if you check my profile and go down to my updates, you see:

"Martyn Halm made a comment in the group Goodreads Authors/Readers — Literary Fiction in the current genre market - review difficulties topic"

[Banjomike]

Martyn wrote: "Banjomike wrote: "That was quick... anyway someone saw it and did it."

Actually, it's still not fixed. If you hover over my name on this post, you'll see Martyn Halm, not Martyn V. Halm, despite t..."

I assumed you were talking about your author profile which is Martyn V. as you said. Sorry.

Any ordinary member can change their profile name from this page:
https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit?f...
I would make sure the boxes are filled in the same way as in your author profile.

[Martyn]

I clicked on Banjomike's link. First I added V. to the 'Middle Name', but that didn't take. I removed the V. and added it behind Martyn in the 'First Name' box and that seems to work.