separate listings for different translations

[Louise]

In January my English translation of Soji Shimada's Murder in the Crooked House was released. Unfortunately the entry on my author page takes me to a listing of an earlier Vietnamese edition and all ratings are for that book. I would like my English translation to be listed as a separate book in its own right with its own reviews and ratings.
*I posted this once but haven't found any replies. Apologies if I missed them.

[Linda]

This is the edition I see on your author page:
https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

It's an English edition, not Vietnamese. Is that what you're seeing now?

If I'm not mistaken, the edition that shows on author pages is the most-shelved edition. It's not a static selection, so it can change as more people shelve one language vs. another.

The ratings and reviews for all editions are all displayed together regardless of language. As far as I know, there's nothing authors can do about that because it's just how Goodreads works. However, any Goodreads user can filter the reviews to see only the reviews for the particular edition they want (among other filters, such as "only 5-star reviews").

Have I answered your question? If not, please provide more info.

[Louise]

Lindoula wrote: "This is the edition I see on your author page:

Thank you very much for your reply, Lindoula. Yes, the edition on my author page is the English edition with my name, which is great. However, when I go to the listing it looks as if that English edition already has 143 ratings and 22 reviews when in fact all of the reviews and almost all the ratings are for the Vietnamese edition, which I think is very misleading.
Thank you also for letting me that a Goodreads user can filter out the reviews to be for only the English edition. I tried it and was successful. However it still lists the overall star rating. I just wish that I could start afresh.
This may be how Goodreads works, but I don't think it ought to be. I think most translators would agree with me that they believe their work to be a separate book from the original language and any other.
Thank you again for your help. It was much appreciated.

[Sandra]

From the Librarian Manual:


"do combine:
. Different publications of the same book.
. Different formats of the book (hardcover, paperback, audio).
. Editions/translations of the book in other languages. Even though many translations differ significantly, we've made the decision to combine them all, and have people note the differences in their reviews."

[Louise]

Thank you, Sandra. I appreciate knowing the rules, but reserve my right, as a literary translator, to respectfully disagree with the decision in item #3. I would argue that the phrase "even though many translations differ significantly" in fact should read "each translation is a completely different book."
That said, I do appreciate the Goodreads policy of naming the translator.

Sandra wrote: "From the Librarian Manual:


"do combine:
. Different publications of the same book.
. Different formats of the book (hardcover, paperback, audio).
. Editions/translations of the book in other lang..."

[Louise]

Actually, now that I have given the issue some more thought, I don't really understand why the English edition of a Japanese book leads to reviews of the Vietnamese version. Surely the Vietnamese reviews should appear under the title written in Vietnamese? Strangely there are no reviews in Japanese of the Japanese edition. That entry has only Vietnamese reviews too. Seems very confusing.

[lethe]

Since all editions of a work are combined, ratings and reviews are shown for the work as a whole. It is possible though to filter the ratings/reviews per edition.

If you click on the rating details on the English edition's book page, you will see that it has two ratings and no reviews.

The Japanese edition has 41 ratings and 3 reviews (two in English and one in Japanese): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... (under Community Reviews, click on Filter - this edition)

[Linda]

I can understand your frustration, but remember that volunteer librarians don't make the rules. We can help make changes in line with the rules but have no more say in site policies than any other user. If you'd like to give feedback to Goodreads, the Goodreads Feedback group is available to you.

[Thomaz]

Is there a way to log in as "read" the specific translation? Besides being unfair with the translator's work not to give it visibility it is strange to me that when I read a book in its original language and then its translation it appears as if i have read the "same book" twice... This has happened with a number of books over my life in which indeed when I re-read them I read them in a different language but it is a particular issue with poetry when the point of reading both books one after the other is specifically to consider how the poems were translated.