Subtitles and how I should handle them

[Wilmar]

Hello fellow librarians.

I have a question on how I should label my subtitles and what not. This will also apply to how I should put my titles in the "title sort" field.

So I have a book series in the works:

The Silver Ninja

and now

The Silver Ninja: Indoctrination.

Originally I titled the (series) as Silver in the metadata on Amazon and Createspace. But with the way it is on GR, that seems like it might not be a good idea.

What I wanted to do was label one series Ruby, Sapphire, etc.

But maybe I'm going about this the wrong way. Should the series name be "THE SILVER NINJA" and when I want to do a new series, maybe call it "THE RUBY NINJA"?

The second book is titled The Silver Ninja: Indoctrination

How should I go about listing this in the title sort and then what do you guys suggest for series name?

Just want to make this easier for everyone and want to avoid confusion. If my question doesn't make sense, please feel free to let me know.

[Z-squared]

hrm. ok, quick answer is that "The Silver Ninja: Indoctrination" is not how we would title it here. It should be "Indoctrination (The Silver Ninja, #2)". Book one would be "The Silver Ninja (The Silver Ninja, #1)". The series would be titled "The Silver Ninja".

The new series would be whatever you want, but sure, "The Ruby Ninja" would be fine, and you can include in a description for both series that they are connected to each other.

[Z-squared]

Actually, my answer above was a tad confusing. SOrry! To make everything easier, I added your new book here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

And created a series page here:

https://www.goodreads.com/series/1280...

The way both books are listed is consistent with GR policy. Right now, the title field for book one has "The Silver Ninja" in it (no series name), so I've done the same with book two: "Indoctrination" with no series name. Because I created a series page for you, the series name gets automatically appended to each book on their individual book pages (in parentheses and in grey font).

[Wilmar]

Z-squared wrote: "Actually, my answer above was a tad confusing. SOrry! To make everything easier, I added your new book here:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2...

And created a series pag..."

Thank you very much. I will keep that in mind as I continue to plug out the rest of the series.

So, in general. When I type in "The Silver Ninja" in the search bar. Will the second book pop up too? Indoctrination is a very broad term and it would inevitably bury my book amongst others.

[Z-squared]

ahhhh ok, good question. i almost went into this, but i didn't want to overwhelm you with in librarian insider baseball!

there are two valid ways you can enter your book titles in the title field:

(a) Indoctrination
(b) Indoctrination (The Silver Ninja, #2)

Both are valid, they just look a little different. Method (a) has no series name manually entered into the title field, so you get the appended series name in grey (which Goodreads adds automatically, as we discussed above). And on the series page for your books, each book title appears as "The Silver Ninja" and "Indoctrination", also with no series name appended.

If you were to use method (b), however, on the series page, the book titles would appear as "The Silver Ninja (The Silver Ninja, #1)" and "Indoctrination (The Silver Ninja, #2)".

Normally, authors use whichever method appeals to them aesthetically BUT in your case, adding the series name manually each book title field has the added bonus of allowing Indoctrination to show up as a hit for searches of The Silver Ninja. Goodreads' search function only searches title and author fields (I believe), not series.

I was about to change your title fields to include the series name, but looks like another librarian beat me to it. Anyway, now you know why!

[Wilmar]

Z-squared wrote: "ahhhh ok, good question. i almost went into this, but i didn't want to overwhelm you with in librarian insider baseball!

there are two valid ways you can enter your book titles in the title fie..."

Thank you so, so much! This has been very informative and easy to digest. I simply look at what the librarian changed and the info you provided and now understand the process.

It's greatly appreciated, thank you. Free digital copies of the book if any librarians are interested! :D