Series Numbering

[bluepeter]

I believe that I've got the basics of numbering books within series - most look fine to me. The problem I have is that I sometimes buy omnibus books, or "boxed sets" as retailers often label them. One example that I have is The David Raker Collection Books 1-3. As things stand, the Series column in Calibre says "David Raker [1]", and doesn't reflect the fact that the book also includes books 2 and 3 in the series. If I have the fourth in the series, I can either
(a) label it incorrectly as book 2; or
(b) label it as book 4, in which case it appears that books 2 and 3 are missing.

Is there any way of getting the Series label to say "David Raker [1 - 3]" (or something along those lines? If so, how is it done?

How do others handle this little conundrum?

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

I believe that I've got the basics of numbering books within series - most look fine to me. The problem I have is that I sometimes buy omnibus books, or "boxed sets" as retailers often label them. One example that I have is The David Raker Collection Books 1-3. As things stand, the Series column in Calibre says "David Raker [1]", and doesn't reflect the fact that the book also includes books 2 and 3 in the series. If I have the fourth in the series, I can either
(a) label it incorrectly as book 2; or
(b) label it as book 4, in which case it appears that books 2 and 3 are missing.

Is there any way of getting the Series label to say "David Raker [1 - 3]" (or something along those lines? If so, how is it done?

How do others handle this little conundrum?

No, it isn't possible using the series column or a series-like custom column. Personally, I have a text-based custom column in calibre, where I manually enter David Raker [1-3]. But on my Kobos I use the default series column and I mark the 4. book as 4. there (so yes, it appears as if 2. and 3. are missing, but I can always check calibre if I don't remember. Which I usually do, because I do this with all my omnibuses).

Edit: yeah, I also have the David Raker omnibus both in calibre and on my Kobos, but I haven't read it yet.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

I believe that I've got the basics of numbering books within series - most look fine to me. The problem I have is that I sometimes buy omnibus books, or "boxed sets" as retailers often label them. One example that I have is The David Raker Collection Books 1-3. As things stand, the Series column in Calibre says "David Raker [1]", and doesn't reflect the fact that the book also includes books 2 and 3 in the series. If I have the fourth in the series, I can either
(a) label it incorrectly as book 2; or
(b) label it as book 4, in which case it appears that books 2 and 3 are missing.

Is there any way of getting the Series label to say "David Raker [1 - 3]" (or something along those lines? If so, how is it done?

How do others handle this little conundrum?

What I would do is label it with the number of the first book. Yes, it will look like you have missing books, but in the title, you can put in the word Omnibus so you know it's not a standalone and you aren't missing any books. Another option is in the description, you can put in that the first book is an Omnibus and contains books 1-3.

[bluepeter]

Fair enough. Thank you for your replies.

At least I wasn't missing something obvious!

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

What I would do is label it with the number of the first book. Yes, it will look like you have missing books, but in the title, you can put in the word Omnibus so you know it's not a standalone and you aren't missing any books. Another option is in the description, you can put in that the first book is an Omnibus and contains books 1-3.

In my case, I have the title for the omnibus as David Raker I-III.

[DNSB]

For what it might be worth, you can have omnibus numbering use [1-3] easily enough for Kobo devices. There was a discussion on MobileRead about that a while back with, IIRC, Charles Haley doing the heavy lifting. I do use the series with the series number set to [start number].[end number], i.e. 1.04 for an omnibus that contains books 1-4 and 5.08 for an omnibus that contains books 5-8.

Edit: Just did a quick search and the thread was Kobo: Separate series index (text) and series_index (float)? with the template I'm using in message #16.

You will need to create a Omnibus column add a checkmark to the use series number template on the third tab of the KoboTouch configuration and enter the following in the template field:

program:
	if field('#omnibus')=='yes' then
		series_start = floor($series_index);
		fraction = fractional_part($series_index);
		if fraction ==# 0 then
			result = series_start
		else
			series_end = round(fraction*100);
			if series_end >=# 0 then
				result = series_start & '-' & series_end
			fi
		fi
	else
		result = $series_index
	fi;
	result

I've attached images of what the configuration page looks like, the Omnibus custom column and a screenshot from my Sage. Basically, once I created the custom column, I did a search for books with either box set or omnibus in the title and marked those as yes in the omnibus column and then updated the metadata on ereader.

[bluepeter]

Many thanks, @DNSB. That's very helpful and much appreciated. I'm going to have to give it some serious thought - and a bit of work, since this is stuff I've never tried before.

[Sirtel]

Many thanks from me too, I'll definitely try it.

[Sirtel]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Many thanks from me too, I'll definitely try it.

This worked very nicely.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

This worked very nicely.

Sadly, it doesn't work for me. I use, for example, 5.5 or a short story or similar that comes between books 5 and 6. Oh, well.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by Sirtel

Edit: yeah, I also have the David Raker omnibus both in calibre and on my Kobos, but I haven't read it yet.

FWIW, I'm enjoying the series. I also have the second omnibus, which contains books 4 to 8, and have read as far as the seventh book (Broken Heart). The protagonist does seem to have an unerring ability to take on cases that end up placing him in considerable personal danger!

[pdurrant]

Originally Posted by bluepeter

I believe that I've got the basics of numbering books within series - most look fine to me. The problem I have is that I sometimes buy omnibus books, or "boxed sets" as retailers often label them. One example that I have is The David Raker Collection Books 1-3. As things stand, the Series column in Calibre says "David Raker [1]", and doesn't reflect the fact that the book also includes books 2 and 3 in the series. If I have the fourth in the series, I can either
(a) label it incorrectly as book 2; or
(b) label it as book 4, in which case it appears that books 2 and 3 are missing.

Is there any way of getting the Series label to say "David Raker [1 - 3]" (or something along those lines? If so, how is it done?

How do others handle this little conundrum?

What I would do is give it a series name of "David Raker Omnibus [1]" and then use the Epub Split plugin to create individual books with the original titles and series name set to "David Raker [1]", "David Raker [2]" and "David Raker [3]"

The Epub Split plugin is easy to use, and creating individual books means that it's to see where gaps are in series. I have a custom column of "Shops" to list where I got a book from, and I just enter "calibre" in that column of the individual books from an omnibus.

[bluepeter]

Originally Posted by pdurrant

What I would do is give it a series name of "David Raker Omnibus [1]" and then use the Epub Split plugin to create individual books with the original titles and series name set to "David Raker [1]", "David Raker [2]" and "David Raker [3]"

The Epub Split plugin is easy to use, and creating individual books means that it's to see where gaps are in series. I have a custom column of "Shops" to list where I got a book from, and I just enter "calibre" in that column of the individual books from an omnibus.

Thank you.

That's helpful, interesting, and well worth considering. I like the concept very much.

However, the name suggests that it'll only work with EPUBs, in which case it'll only be of limited use to me: my default format is KEPUB, and a significant proportion of my e-books aren't held as EPUBs. Anyway, I've found the EpubSplit plugin on GitHub and downloaded it. I'll play around with it. I suppose that if I don't have an EPUB of a book that I want to split, I can always convert to EPUB, split and then convert back.

[bluepeter]

A few minutes later...

It seems that EpubSplit doesn't even work with my EPUB books. I got version 3.12.0, which is labelled as the latest release. When I tried using it on one of my EPUBs, I got an error message to the effect that it only works with EPUB2 format books. Mine appear all to be EPUB3.

Oh, well. That's a shame.

[Sirtel]

You can install the plugin directly in calibre (Preferences -> Plugins -> Get new plugins), no need to search the internet for it. Don't know about epub2 vs epub3, though.

Personally I don't split my omnibuses, I like them the way they are.