Policy or common practice on secondary clauses in titles? ("a novel"; "a thriller"; "Rhubarb Quest #5")

[Laird]

I'm finding more and more entries with a secondary/parenthetical/series clause in the title, e.g.:

"A Dreadful Splendor: A Novel"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...)

"Beware The Dog: Junkyard Dogs 1"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6...)

"Ultimate Power: A Thriller"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...)

"Twenty Years Later: A Riveting New Thriller"
(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/5...)


If there's a guiding principle (e.g. follow CIP data) it's not clear to me.

IMO, the series info and the content-free notes ("A novel") and the puffery ("A new classic for the ages") don't belong in the title; other metadata should carry that content. Genre indicators ("An Abraham Lincoln Epic Fantasy") are... borderline.

Policies? Thoughts?

[Scott]

We do not put "a novel" or "a thriller" or "an epic fantasy" and anything like "a riveting new thriller" should absolutely be removed.

As for the series the correct format would be "Beware the Dog (Junkyard Dogs #1)".

[lethe]

Unfortunately this is how these titles are imported (or sometimes changed) by import bots, so I don't think anything can be done to prevent it.

[gem]

I was about to make a new post with a similar question about "genre indicator" subtitles -- hope it's okay to ask it here instead.

The Sixty/Forty Rule: An Enemies to Lovers Romance [Goodreads Page]

The above book's subtitle is really just marketing keywords, a very common tactic on Amazon. I was about to remove it, but the title page in the Librarian manual doesn't explicitly say it's not allowed.

What would it take to get an official policy decision on this and update the manual page?

edit: I missed Scott's reply above, sounds like it should be removed so doing that now.

[Elizabeth (Alaska)]

Gwen wrote: "I was about to make a new post with a similar question about "genre indicator" subtitles -- hope it's okay to ask it here instead.

[book:The Sixty/Forty Rule: An Enemies to Lovers Romance|63899308..."

I remove such in my librarian travels. I do look to see if they in any way indicate a series, however. When they do, I leave them in the accepted series format.

[gem]

Elizabeth wrote: "I remove such in my librarian travels. I do look to see if they in any way indicate a series, however. When they do, I leave them in the accepted series format."

Thanks for the reply! I'm a new librarian so still learning the ropes.