New editions, series book numbering, and official URLs

[Dusk]

Three questions that have been pressing upon me for some time:

1) How do I create an entry for a new edition? I know this is a stupid question, but I just can't figure out the proper method.

2) In terms of numbering, how do I handle cases where the series has volumes, and each volume contains stories that are also separately published?

I've been numbering the individual stories like this. (This is a series I've authored myself.)

Life Prison (Life Prison, #1.1)
Coded Messages (Life Prison, #1.2)

Indicating that "Life Prison" is the first story in the first volume of the Life Prison series, while "Coded Messages" is the second story in the first volume of the same series.

But whoever put the entries up for that series numbered them like this:

Life Prison (Life Prison: Mercy's Prisoner #1)
Coded Messages (Life Prison: Mercy's Prisoner #2)

"Mercy's Prisoner" being Volume 1 of the Life Prison series. Which numbering scheme is correct?

(This problem arises because Amazon can't handle numbers like 1.1, so none of my e-books there are numbered.)

2) Having more than 50 books on my shelves, I've applied twice to be a Goodreads Librarian. (I've worked for publishers, I've worked for bookstores, I've been a student aide at several libraries, I've created several online bibliographies, and I once worked for the journal of the Bibliographical Society of America. In short, I understand the importance of bibliographical accuracy.) However, I never heard back from the Goodreads staff, so I assume my applications were turned down.

I've authored 60+ e-books, and they're all listed at Goodreads. Virtually none of them have official URLs listed in the Goodreads data. I hate to ask anyone else to slog through that work. So . . .

Is there any way to add an official URL without being a Goodreads Librarian?

[Z-squared]

1) The short answer is... read the librarian manual :P The longer answer is to go to any goodreads book entry. Click on 'add a new edition'. Fill in all the information you can, especially the ISBN or ASIN. Create the book. Keep in mind, this will create a new record that is separate from the original, and the new edition will have to be combined with the old. If you're adding an edition to a book that is yours, as the primary author, you then can combine the editions together. If you're adding an edition to a book that is NOT yours, then you have to ask a librarian to do it for you.

2) You're the author, you can number it however you like. Just be consistent. I'm not sure if authors have the power to edit series, but I'll bet they can. Try navigating to the series page and click 'edit' in the top left corner. Or, just post here with the changes you want to the series, and a librarian can take care of it.

3) Librarian status is not granted automatically. But as a goodreads author, you already have a lot of editing power over your own books. For example, you should be able to add the official URLs to any book where you are listed as the primary author. You will have to add the URL to each edition of a book manually, but aside from being tedious, it should be doable. Just click on 'edit details', and there is a field for adding a URL. If that fails, again, feel free to ask librarians. It's what we do.

[Cait]

Actually, authors don't have the ability to edit series or add URLs. As Z-squared says, though, we're happy to do these things if you can list them out.

Dusk wrote: "In terms of numbering, how do I handle cases where the series has volumes, and each volume contains stories that are also separately published?"

That's kind of a tricky question. The most common series is one with novels and short stories, and in that case the novels are given whole numbers and the short stories are given decimals based on their relation to the novels -- so, for example, you might have novel #1, novel #2, and short story #1.5 which is set between them.

For series made up of short stories which are collected together, you can treat the short stories as the base objects and give them whole numbers, then treat the collections like omnibuses. For example, you might have story #1, story #2, story #3, and collection #1-3 which contains all three stories.

You can also use text in addition to (or instead of) numbers to order a series. In that case, you could have the short story collections numbered with whole numbers and then list each part as that number plus "story X of Y". (The wording "part X/Y" is often used for series books which are split into parts when translated or read as audio.) For example, you might have book #1 which collects 3 stories numbered #1 story 1 of 3, #1 story 2 of 3, and #1 story 3 of 3.

If you would rather use the #1.1, #1.2 method for stories from book #1, we can add an explanation to the series description so that readers don't think that these are additional stories set between the whole numbered books. As long as it's consistent, that would also work fine.

It will need a librarian to implement the method you choose, though! GR Authors can't create or edit series, even for their own books. (It's a technical limitation on what the system can and can't easily judge you as the author "owning", since it's possible to have multi-author series.)

[Dusk]

Z-squared wrote:

"Click on 'add a new edition'"

Oh gosh, I *knew* it was something simple like that.

And yes, I did pore through the manual looking for the answer. Multiple times, over the stretch of several years. And there the answer was, staring me in the face.

"Librarian status is not granted automatically."

I know; that's why applied for it twice. :)

"For example, you should be able to add the official URLs to any book where you are listed as the primary author."

As far as I can tell, non-librarian authors don't have that power; a space for the official URL doesn't show up when I click on the page for the book's detail. Which I totally don't understand, because authors can change practically everything *else* about a book's detail, and we're the ones most likely to know the official URL.

I'll wait to see whether anyone else has any ideas before I throw the 60+ URLs at you. (This is an ongoing issue, incidentally. I bring out new e-books every month.)

"You're the author, you can number it however you like."

Thanks! I asked about series numbering simply because the issue comes up when I type in the title.

"Try navigating to the series page and click 'edit' in the top left corner."

Alas, when I click on "edit" on the series page, it just kicks me back to the home page of Goodreads. And there doesn't seem to be any way for me to start a series page for books of mine that don't yet have one.

Again, there's the problem that I keep bringing out new e-books, so I'd have to come back to you guys every month with new requests.

[Dusk]

Thanks, Cait! That's very helpful.

[Z-squared]

Dusk wrote: "...Again, there's the problem that I keep bringing out new e-books, so I'd have to come back to you guys every month with new requests. "

It's not a problem for us, we do this for fun. We're weird like that. :) Didn't know about the author series/url issues, sorry about that.

Pro tip for getting librarians to notice and respond to your requests faster: start a new thread with each request, and keep each thread focused on one task or set of tasks. For example, start a new thread to request adding your official URLs to books. Include both the URL you want to add and a direct link to the Goodreads record you want the URL added to. Start another thread when you want something different, like getting a series created. New threads (as opposed to tacking on additional requests to old ones) generally get noticed faster, too.

Just thought you'd like the extra info, since it looks like you'll be posting in the librarian group a lot in the near future!

[Dusk]

Thanks! I appreciate the tips.