Claiming author profile

[Patrick]

The Institute of Chartered Shipbrokers is listed as author of several of its own books, as often happens with similar publishers (e.g. Rough Guides). I run the publishing operation there and tried to claim the profile on the Institute's behalf. I did the same with ICS, where some of the Institute's other books are listed.

I got no response, so a week or so later I tried again while not logged in, in case there was a conflict with my profile.

The usual response is supposed to be 24 hours, but it's been about a month and I haven't heard anything. Can anyone advise?

[P.D.]

First, you can only claim one author per email account, so you may need to create a new email account for that name. Second, I have been told on other books where the publisher name is used in the contributors field that the publisher name cannot be claimed.

[Patrick]

Thanks. It seems odd that an author can be listed but nobody can claim the identity. I'll investigate further.

[Jaclyn]

Hi Patrick. Pamela is correct. We don't allow publishers or groups to have author accounts, as only individual living authors can join the Author Program – sorry about that.

[Patrick]

Thanks Jaclyn. Maybe that should be made clear on the "claim this profile" page. I spent some time filling in the form for the two variations of my organisation – finding book lists, getting the right urls, identifying wrong attributions, etc – then doing it all over again because I hadn't had a reply, then coming here to start a discussion to find out why.

Goodreads can be funny like that. If the answer is yes, they'll tell you. If it's no, they won't tell you. They just ignore you.

Of course, now I'm wondering, if an organisation can't be claimed as an author, why is it allowed to be listed as one?

[P.D.]

I think that Goodreads doesn't regulate what is in the author/contributor fields because it is pulled into Goodreads automatically from other sources, such as Amazon. Amazon allows pretty much anything in the contributor fields and Goodreads doesn't bother to audit them. But Goodreads can control who they approve for an author account on their own platform.

[Patrick]

OK, that makes sense.

It would still be helpful to make it clear before anyone goes to the bother of trying to claim such a name, or at least reply telling them so, rather than just ignoring the request.

Anyway, thanks for clarifying matters.

[Jaclyn]

Patrick wrote: "Thanks Jaclyn. Maybe that should be made clear on the "claim this profile" page. I spent some time filling in the form for the two variations of my organisation – finding book lists, getting the ri..."

I can see how that would be helpful – I'll let the team know this suggestion!