Kindle "Sort by Author" is Sorting by First Name

[SHydroxide]

Okay I have played with this for an hour and my brain is going to explode if I pursue it any longer.

For whatever reason, I have exported from Calibre about 900 books to my Kindle 3, and when I tell my Kindle to sort the books by author it is sorting them by their first name instead of their last name.

All of the books have the Author set as Fn Ln (so Virginia Woolf or Kurt Vonnegut) and I guess the Kindle is supposed to magically figure out to sort by last name? And this has something to do with the "Author_sort" field in Calibre?

Can someone just tell me what I'm doing wrong so that my Kindle will sort correctly? If I have to re-type all the author names so they're "Vonnegut, Kurt" I will kill myself.

Thanks!

[Alison C]

Hello, SHydroxide. Please don't kill yourself! I hope I can help, because five minutes ago I found the solution to the same problem. I've copied below my "eureka!" post; the thread itself is at

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=115919

I hope this helps. I guess the same principle would apply to other formats.

Quote:
Take a look at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/showthread.php?t=98470, which is a long discussion of author sorting on the kindle. There might be something there that helps explain what is happening

Fantastic! Thanks so much for this pointer; my problem is solved at last. I did try searching for threads on the same topic before posting this one, but clearly wasn't using the right terms.

The answer became clear in a post by Dark Laguna, though on re-reading the thread it was implied in things said by chaley and Isherwood, so kudos and thanks to all three of you. All I had to do was go to Preferences, Conversion, Output Options, Mobi Output, and then tick the box for "Use author sort for author". I re-sent the books, and hey presto! all is well.

[SHydroxide]

Originally Posted by Alison C

Hello, SHydroxide. Please don't kill yourself! I hope I can help, because five minutes ago I found the solution to the same problem. I've copied below my "eureka!" post; the thread itself is at

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sho...d.php?t=115919

I hope this helps. I guess the same principle would apply to other formats.

Ah, that's done it! Thanks very much!