KFX multiple author problem

[coolyazz]

Hello everyone. I have been converting my books to KFX, as the text seems to format better on my kindle oasis (drop caps in particular). However, if the book has multiple authors, the book on the kindle only displays one name in the description. Using MOBI and AZW3, multiple author names show correctly, but the book text isn't formatted as good as KFX.

I polish before sending to device (to embed the correct metadata in the KFX file) but it doesn't make a difference. Is there a way to get the kindle to show both author's names?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by coolyazz

Hello everyone. I have been converting my books to KFX, as the text seems to format better on my kindle oasis (drop caps in particular). However, if the book has multiple authors, the book on the kindle only displays one name in the description. Using MOBI and AZW3, multiple author names show correctly, but the book text isn't formatted as good as KFX.

That is a limitation of how sideloaded KFX is supported by Kindle devices. Only the first author name is processed.

Originally Posted by coolyazz

I polish before sending to device (to embed the correct metadata in the KFX file) but it doesn't make a difference. Is there a way to get the kindle to show both author's names?

"Polish" only supports AZW3 and EPUB formats. It has no effect on KFX.

The "Embed metadata" function does handle KFX and this is done automatically by default when you send a book to a device. But, as I stated earlier, this won't help for multiple authors.

[coolyazz]

Ah... I see. Thanks for explainng. I guess I can live with the problem, as the KFX text formatting seems so much better!

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jhowell

That is a limitation of how sideloaded KFX is supported by Kindle devices. Only the first author name is processed.

Kobo devices have a similar limitation. They are only reading the first dc:creator in the OPF of an epub. But, if this is set to the list of authors (FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2,...) it will parse that to get all the authors. I use a metadata plugboard to set this when sending the books to my Kobo devices. Is it possible that Kindle are doing something similar?

[jhowell]

Originally Posted by davidfor

Kobo devices have a similar limitation. They are only reading the first dc:creator in the OPF of an epub. But, if this is set to the list of authors (FN1 LN1, FN2 LN2,...) it will parse that to get all the authors. I use a metadata plugboard to set this when sending the books to my Kobo devices. Is it possible that Kindle are doing something similar?

It should be possible to combine multiple authors into one author field, but it is tricky to get right since Kindles expect the author name to be stored in "last, first" format for sorting but display it as "first last".

To get "John Smith and Tom Jones" displayed as the author it would have to be stored as "Smith and Tom Jones, John" in order to sort somewhat correctly.

[davidfor]

Originally Posted by jhowell

It should be possible to combine multiple authors into one author field, but it is tricky to get right since Kindles expect the author name to be stored in "last, first" format for sorting but display it as "first last".

To get "John Smith and Tom Jones" displayed as the author it would have to be stored as "Smith and Tom Jones, John" in order to sort somewhat correctly.

Yuck. That would make it hard to get right.