Max number of Authors you're willing to cite?

[Cyphigma]

I've played around with calibre a bit and know some of the basics. I know that you can have multiple authors for a book.

But is there an effective limit for how many Authors you're willing to put into the author field on a book? Maybe 6 and after that you just cite "multiple authors" or something? I've got some anthologies, so they cite each of the authors. I'm not sure its a good idea to cite a dozen authors for one book. Oh, and there is no editor listed.

Comments or suggestions?

[theducks]

I started out with a filename based e-reader so LONG was OUT.
I originally made a pseudonym column (authors type), but it evolved.
If my {authors} exceeds 3, I put them in that column and I place the primary or editor into the Authors column (Author Name (ed) ) I also set Preferences: Searching: Grouped Search (tab) to look at both columns.

FWIW I also add the Translator (trans), Illustrator (Ilus) if a major part of the content.

Author sort ignores the (stuff in here)

[Cyphigma]

I think I understood you. So you've got an Author/Editor field that just gets a single person listed, either the editor or the first author, but you add " (ed)" to their name to specify them as the editor. But you've also got a separate Authors field where everyone gets accredited. Everyone gets credit, everyone can be found in a search, no humongous filenames. Makes sense.

Something I'm not sure I get is the (trans) and (illus) identifiers. You're placing these identifiers into entries in that second Authors field, correct? The one where you cite everyone?

[theducks]

Ed, Illus, Trans are treated as the STANDARD Calibre {authors} along with the original Author. (Usually, there is only 2 names: Author and Translator)
the custom column is a catch all. Multiple authors (collections,anthologies) or pseudonym owner {authors} gets the original cover name ('writing as': remember, this is used to lookup metadata) This might be the pen name.

[Cyphigma]

Hmm... I added the #Credits custom column (text, names). I also changed the Search function as suggested. I didn't notice at the time, but in doing so I "lost" these extra authors from the Tag Browser. In hindsight it's WAI. It's a different column so there is no reason it should lump the contents together automatically... but that is what I originally expected.

So... I'ld like all the authors back in the Tag Browser, if possible, under a single category name. Is this what the Author Book Count (ABC) plugin does, effectively?

Sorry, if this seems obvious to others. But I find the plugin descriptions to be "written by programmers for programmers" and therefore quite difficult for the layman (me) to grok.

[yonkyunior]

so far, i had citing all author in anthology, if there is editor, then i put the editor to the front, so the calibre would save the book in the editor-name-folder, just for that reason.

for the individual book, i only put author name.
if the book was translated, then i put translator in custom column #translator
same as editor, artwork, etc goes to custom column.
i think i can easily include, exclude, or combine them with save template and plugboard.

so, author column only for real author name and pseudonym, because i'd like to see all book, ex: JK Rowling with Robert Galbraith showing up when i search with only JK Rowling.

[Tarana]

Originally Posted by Cyphigma

I've played around with calibre a bit and know some of the basics. I know that you can have multiple authors for a book.

But is there an effective limit for how many Authors you're willing to put into the author field on a book? Maybe 6 and after that you just cite "multiple authors" or something? I've got some anthologies, so they cite each of the authors. I'm not sure its a good idea to cite a dozen authors for one book. Oh, and there is no editor listed.

Comments or suggestions?

Calibre is for YOUR use, so whatever works for you. For anthologies, I only list the editor and good stories by a favorite author. For instance, I have Warriors (CD) in my hand and it is edited by George R R Martin and Gardner Dozois. Before reading it, ok, in this case listening, I would also include Naomi Novik, Robin Hobb and Robert Silverberg as authors. AFTER reading, I would add other authors only if their stories are outstanding primarily because I might read more of their work as a result of this outstanding story. I have no reason to cite other authors in this collection.

I have a couple of compilations that have no author, so I just list the favored authors and leave the editor out.

Keep in mind what your future use would be for the cataloguing. You can waste a lot of time with cataloguing that is better spent reading. So think of how you expect to use it before adding more layers of stuff.

Now that I'm learning how to split books, I can also clip out the favorite stories and simply list them separately from the original book. So, I would still have the book Warriors with ed. Martin and Dozois, but separate entries with excised stories from Novik, Hobb and maybe Joe Haldeman. I might make a separate library of just saved short stories and novellas, but only the best. Probably too much work as I don't have that many anthologies, but just throwing that out there.

[Cyphigma]

Thanks for the response.

In my case I have non-anthology books that have anywhere from 4-12 primary authors, upwards of two dozen "with contributions by" authors. There are just far too many people to include in the Authors field. Particularly since calibre uses this to create it's internal folder structure. I would quickly run into the 250 character limit filepath issue (if it still applies) on Windows 10.

Considering how many calibre users are database savvy, I figured to ask because someone other than me must have run into the issue.

So right now I'm entering a single person in Author and everyone else in #Credits, with proper citation and I've set calibre to check both columns on a search. And I've just started to try understanding the Entity Management plugin... but so far it's evading understanding.