Goodreads Librarians Group discussion
This topic is about
Busy Broccoli
Book Issues
>
Linking to the iBook Store
date
newest »
newest »
It is up to each individual reader to assign booksellers to the drop down list. You cannot add them for anyone other than yourself.They can be found under Your Profile, Your Account, Book Links. As I'm in Australia, I have numerous ones that are applicable to me to choose from.
"Book links are intended to link to sites that have an ISBN search and have a large catalogue of books (booksellers, libraries, etc). Book links are not intended to link to sites about a particular book — those are best placed in the "url" or "description" field of the book. "
I can't see ibooks on my list, and if they aren't available on yours either, I'd email support @ goodreads (dot) com to request they be added, providing they have an isbn I suppose. You definitely can't use the apple id.
Yesterday I answered a similar question, so I'm adapting my answer.The 'get a copy' links are added by users themselves. Each user adds their own links. (I have several Dutch links, because I live in the Netherlands. Someone in the US, or f.e. Spain, will use other links.) The links are not book-specific.
On the 'edit profile' page: https://www.goodreads.com/user/edit is a tab 'Book links'. Users can choose their own links from those lists. There is a link to Apple iBooks.
lethe wrote: "There is a link to Apple iBooks."You'll find it if you select country "US" (you can add links from different countries to your personal list, they'll work wherever you are).
Sandra wrote: ""(...)those are best placed in the "url" or "description" field of the book.""The "description" part is outdated, no links to outside sources may be added to the description field.
Well, I copy & pasted so they need to update. And I agree they don't belong in the description field.
Phillip wrote: "The ebook doesn't have ISBN, but trying to use the Apple id instead of an ASIN didn't work either..."The 'get a copy' links work with ISBNs or (for Kindle editions) ASINs. If there isn't an ISBN, some sources will do a title search (f.e. Amazon, Kobo, Smashwords), others won't show up in the dropdown menu (Worldcat).
I tested it out, and Apple iBooks does not show up for this ISBN-less edition.
Sandra wrote: "Well, I copy & pasted so they need to update. And I agree they don't belong in the description field."I know, I quoted your quote from the links page.
Hello Lethe and Sandra.I found the link to the Apple iBook store under the US heading—I'm in Australia and it wasn't listed there—so I can now link to the Apple store for books with ISBNs from my own account. Thank you.
However, with regards to my original issue, the iBook Store accept items without ISBNs and they have their own unique 10 digit identifier like Amazon's ASIN, so I would have thought it would be simple to do a call to the iBook Store in a similar manner that calls to the Amazon store are made.
However, if this is not the case, and I can't put a URL into the description field (and there is no 'URL' field visible on my screen), is there any recognised way for iBook editions without ISBNs to be added to a Goodreads entry of a book?
Thank you for your efforts, much appreciated.
Phill Berrie.
If there is no separate ISBN, then you Can add a standard ebook without identifiers but it is treated no differently than any other ebook and are not given any other identifier to specify it as an iBook.Questions about functionality changes belong in the GR feedback group.
Oh well, it looks like we might have to get some ISBNs for these ebooks to make them easily connected.I'll talk to my friend.
Before then, I just add to the description that they are available on the iBook store without using a URL.
The description is for a description of the book, info regarding sales location is not permitted
I have created a new edition (This one, as opposed to the Kindle and physical edition) and defined it as an ebook. The URL for the iBook version is: http://itunes.apple.com/us/book/id116.... The ebook doesn't have ISBN, but trying to use the Apple id instead of an ASIN didn't work either... or at least I couldn't get it to work
It's probably something obvious, so if anyone can help me set up the links for this edition, I should be able to do it for the rest.
Any assistance would be appreciated.
Phill Berrie.
P.S. On a possibly associated matter, I couldn't find a way to create a link to the iBook Store for my own account either. Is linking with Apple really so hard?