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Archived > Problem with Author name

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message 1: by Kim (new)

Kim | 607 comments At the moment you just have to leave it the way it is. Author search goes off the first letter of the last word. Even if it is Jr. GR staff already know about this. I'm not sure what they've got in the works regarding it but they are aware of it. For now it's just something we have to live with.


message 2: by Betsy (new)

Betsy | 605 comments What if you change the author name to DeMichiel on the author page? Wouldn't that populate to all the books and the book shelves and sort correctly?


message 3: by Kim (new)

Kim | 607 comments Have you spoken to the author? As he is a GR Author normal librarians cannot make any changes to his author profile. And I'm pretty sure the staff won't change it as it is currently how the system is.

Tina wrote: "Even if we could somehow list the author's name properly on the author's profile (so it shows correctly as L.A. De Michiel) and compromise on the book's page, removing the space (DeMichiel), so that it shows on the book shelves as DeMichiel, L.A. it would be a huge improvement. Is this at all possible? "

No that is not possible. It would leave the books on a different author profile.


message 4: by Betsy (new)

Betsy | 605 comments I can understand that, but he may have to choose between that and enabling people to find his books.


message 5: by rivka, Former Moderator (last edited Mar 18, 2012 05:29PM) (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
Tina wrote: "I'm afraid that this might be causing problems in searches as well."

Betsy wrote: "I can understand that, but he may have to choose between that and enabling people to find his books."

I'm not understanding why/how you believe this is affecting searching.

Searching for "L.A. De Michiel" works perfectly, and is exactly how it is listed on his book's cover.


message 6: by Kim (new)

Kim | 607 comments The only thing this would affect would be ordering books via author name, which is just a cosmetic fault. Though in saying that I do hope that at some stage they will introduce an author sort field like they do for titles.


message 7: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments I'm having a similar problem. I'm new to GR, just trying to get my author profile set up. Thing is, the official name of the author for most of the books that I want to put my my shelf is Mike Byrnes and Associates, Inc. (which is also the publisher). The limitations imposed by the surname and punctuation rules are rendering all sorts of unfortunate and unsearchable combinations. With your experience what would you recommend as the best way to enter "Mike Byrnes and Associates, Inc." in the author field so it comes out reasonably correct? Thanks so much.


message 8: by rivka, Former Moderator (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
I would suggest "Mike Byrnes and Associates", which is how it appears on some other sites.


message 9: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments Thanks. I'll see if I can edit the books on my shelf.


message 10: by Paula (new)

Paula (paulaan) | 7014 comments You need to edit the author profile not the books


message 11: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments Hmmm... maybe I need two profiles, one for the fiction book(s) of which I am the author and one for non fiction books of which Mike Byrnes and Associates is the author.
I do have two blogs, and the profile will accept only one URL so maybe I really do need to set up two profiles.


message 12: by Cait (last edited Mar 19, 2012 07:01PM) (new)

Cait (tigercait) | 4988 comments Yes, if you're writing under two names you'll probably want two author profiles. The name given in your author profile is the one which will show up as the primary author of the book, so you'll want one for "Devorah Fox" and one for "Mike Byrnes and Associates".

It looks like the "Mike Byrnes and Associates" books are scattered across several author profiles at the moment because of those punctuation problems you mentioned. Do you have a list of them? We can pull them all together under one author for you to claim.

Here are all of the ones I could find:
http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/...


message 13: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments That would be awesome. Two profiles really would be appropriate because the publications and the two blogs do appeal to very different types of readers.
That's an almost complete list of the Mike Byrnes and Associates books except for one more: Bumper to Bumper, La guía completa para operaciones de autotransporte de carga, Revisada ISBN 0-9621687-9-3.9780962168796. This is a Spanish language book, the translation of Bumper to Bumper, The Complete Guide to Tractor-Trailer Operations. You can find out more about it at http://bumper2bumpertruckbook.com/sp-.... All those books are non fiction.

The only book for which Devorah Fox is the primary author would be the novel, "The Lost King."
Thanks for the help, Librarians!


message 14: by Cait (new)

Cait (tigercait) | 4988 comments Found the missing edition -- its ISBN-13 was missing a number, so it didn't show up in search.
http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/13...

I put in your website and a bit of biography on the Mike Byrnes and Associates author profile, but of course you can expand on that when you claim it.


message 15: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments Sorry to be such a pest. I don't know why I'm finding this so difficult!
To manage a Mike Byrnes and Associates author profile, as separate from a Devorah Fox profile, it looks like I have to log out, then register a separate username and password and log in using that. Is that correct?


message 16: by rivka, Former Moderator (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
Yes. Each account must be registered with a different email address.


message 17: by Devorah (new)

Devorah Fox (devorahfox) | 14 comments OK, now I have two accounts and two profiles. I'm a Gemini so this is appropriate.
And thanks, Cait, for finding Bumper to Bumper, La guía completa para operaciones de autotransporte de carga, Revisada. For some reason I can't seem to add it to my Books on the Mike Byrnes profile.
(Just as soon as I get all this housekeeping finished, I can start to have fun with GR.)


message 18: by Mike (new)

Mike | 133 comments I guess the problem referred to in the first message hasn't been resolved yet - I have a book by Walter de la Mare and the author is listed as Mare, Walter de la. There must be enough authors with this problem to justify a fix. The suggestion in message 6 is probably the best one, even though it would be unnecessary for most authors (as for most book titles with the title sort order field).


message 19: by Sydney (new)

Sydney (shawnalbernard) | 52 comments I am really having trouble understanding why books that I DID NOT WRITE keep showing up on my author profile. I have reported this in the past and was told it would be fixed and that it would not happen again. I was told there is a way to make sure that when two authors have the same name there is a way to avoid this mistake. The fact that they are pornographic is not the point--I am not about judging--but I don't write pornography, and don't want my fans and friends to think I do when they see these books on my profile. They aren't mine. PLEASE FIX THIS.


message 20: by rivka, Former Moderator (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
Sydney, that is because you were the default (single-space) Sydney Leigh. I have moved you to being Sydney-2psace-Leigh. The extra space between your first and last names only shows up on book edit pages and your profile edit page, but it tells the system which books are yours.

When adding a book manually, be sure to include the extra space, and the book will go where it belongs. If you forget (or a book record is imported), post a new thread in this group and any librarian can fix it for you. I got that one.


message 21: by Sydney (new)

Sydney (shawnalbernard) | 52 comments I don't always add the books I am in, so how will the publisher and/or editor know to do that?


message 22: by rivka, Former Moderator (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
They probably won't. Just start a new thread in the Book Issues folder for any book needing moving to your profile.


message 23: by Sydney (new)

Sydney (shawnalbernard) | 52 comments Ok. Thanks very much for the quick responses.


message 24: by M.I. (new)

M.I. Kelly | 6 comments I've noticed when I come to Goodreads I'm taken to Maura Kelly's books-and Maura Kelly is how I'm listed on Facebook which is why I think I'm taken to her sight- it looks like she has a few books. My author name is M. I. Kelly and at the moment I only have one book. I was going to edit the name but realzed that I might be changing the name of the other Maura Kelly to my M. I. Kelly. Could you please let me know how to fix this problem. Thanks for your help.


message 25: by rivka, Former Moderator (new)

rivka | 45177 comments Mod
Maura wrote: "I was going to edit the name but realzed that I might be changing the name of the other Maura Kelly to my M. I. Kelly."

That is indeed exactly what would have happened.

All fixed.


message 26: by M.I. (new)

M.I. Kelly | 6 comments Thank you. I appreciate the fast response. You guys do a great job.


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