Merging/ACE Creation: The Pillowman

[Drace]

Because of issues regarding moving ISBNs and ASINs and ACEs (see the following threads: https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/..., https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...), I am requesting Superlibrarian help to create an ACE of a book and merge it with a previously-existing ACE that does not have the ISBNs of the book, even though Goodreads policy states it should.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1... – The first UK edition of the book, ISBN 9780571220328. NOTE: The ASIN is incorrect. The Goodreads bot imported a secondhand Amazon seller’s ASIN and assigned it to this edition. The ASIN needs to be 0571220320. I believe this change needs to be made before any merging or ACE creation is done.

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2... – This is the page for the second UK edition, but the cover art is completely wrong. The art with the bloody pen is not from any existing edition of the book, but randomly grabbed off of Google Images. The correct cover art is below.

An ACE of the first edition needs to be created with the following information:

TITLE: The Pillowman
AUTHOR: Martin McDonagh
ISBN-10: 0571220320
ISBN-13: 9780571220328
ASIN: 0571220320
PUBLISHER: Faber & Faber
DATE PUBLISHED: Not 100% sure. Goodreads policy is that ACEs are assigned the date the specific edition was published, but the publisher’s website lists the date that the ISBN was first created. However, the URL for the book cover image by itself has 2024 in it, so I think 2024 might be a good bet.
NUMBER OF PAGES: 112
FORMAT: Paperback
EDITION: Reprint
DESCRIPTION:
‘The first duty of a storyteller is to tell a story.’ Or was it ‘The only duty of a storyteller is to tell a story’?

A writer in a totalitarian state is interrogated about the gruesome content of his short stories and their similarities to a number of child-murders that are happening in his town.

EDITION LANGUAGE: English
COVER ART: Art by itself in high quality: https://static.faber.co.uk/wp-content... // Publisher website: https://www.faber.co.uk/product/97805...

Once the ACE is created, the second edition I linked above needs to be merged with it.

Thanks for any and all help with this issue. I know it's a bit convoluted, but it's much appreciated.

[David]

Superlibrarians cannot handle ASIN issues. You will need to contact support.
Creating an ACE is something any librarian can do. Please repost your request to the "Book & Author Page Issues" folder.
As for the merge, 149 readers thought this was the correct cover. I don't think merging the edition and changing the cover for them is appropriate. Even if it was, don't see why merging with the ACE is the correct action. Why not merge with the main?

[Drace]

RE: ASIN issues: Got it, will go to support. Something odd about this book is that the US edition is an ACE of the UK edition rather than having a separate ISBN. It looks like the ISBN-10 has been assigned to a random duplicate US edition of the book, so I'll try to see if Staff can help.

RE: the cover art: Put bluntly, I can confidently say that 149 people are completely wrong. 150 people if you count the librarian who uploaded the image. Maybe they just thought the pen looked cooler than the orange cover art on their Shelves page. Anyways, I can prove the invalidity of that art through some basic internet detective work.

If you reverse google image search the cover with the bloody pen (here's the search results page for you: https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv...), none of the links are to any kind of publisher website. No valid sources whatsoever. What it does link to is a Buzzfeed listicle which uses the pen image. That Buzzfeed listicle in turn sources the image to a website that is currently down, brendonhawley.com, but using the Internet Archive we can see that this is the personal website for an actor who was in a local theater production of The Pillowman. Here's an archived version of his site: http://web.archive.org/web/2013052215... Additionally, his Resume page specifically notes the theater company he performed in: http://web.archive.org/web/2013081523...

The only other image results in that reverse image search are Pinterest and an extremely obvious spam website that is using the bloody pen image to advertise purchasing an article about plays you should read.

In short, this is not a valid book cover for any edition of the book that has ever existed. This is an image swiped from Buzzfeed that was in turn swiped from an actor's personal website, it never should have been added to the site, and Goodreads is probably in violation of some sort of copyright guideline by using that poster without permission. At some point or another, it's going to need to be changed to the actual ACE cover art as listed on the Faber & Faber website.

[David]

I think your detective work makes sense. I still don't see why this wrong cover edition needs to be merged with an ACE and not with the first UK edition.

[Drace]

Sorry for the belated response, things got real busy for me IRL.

After consideration, I don't think there's necessarily a reason for it to be merged with an ACE beyond "maybe the people who added the nonexistent cover edition thought they were adding an ACE." Merging it with the primary edition is probably the best way to go.

When I have a bit more time I'm going to sit down and dig through the editions to figure out if there are any more things that might require a superlibrarian, but for the moment I think the merge is the only really major thing for now.

[David]

Merged with default