When to use middle initial for author?

[Sarah]

My quest to clean up various Lutheran publishers and authors continues. Up next: Herbert Brokering.

Probably most of the time on the cover he is credited as simply "Herbert Brokering":
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

But occasionally he is credited as "Herbert F. Brokering":
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show...

Obviously these two author profiles should be merged, since there is only one Herbert Brokering. Which should be kept? And also, there's a good chance that the one that isn't kept will be re-introduced later, since he's credited that way on some book covers--how is that handled?

[Scott]

I've been wondering about this too. There doesn't seem to be any consistency in how this is handled. Iain Banks and Dean Koontz get two profiles, but others are consolidated.

[Krazykiwi]

Banks wrote in different genres with and without the initials. Several others do likewise (Mike Carey vs M.R. Carey off the top of my head). If it is clearly intentional, Gr keeps them separated. Koontz is so prolific and republished I suspect it's just impossible to do otherwise.

Generally if the same books show up inconsistently, merge towards the one with the initial. People searching for Herbert Brokering would still find Herbert F. Brokering, but if you search with the initial you don't get the no initial version.