Sending multiple authors to Kobo so book appears under each author

[palaran]

My apologies if this has already been addressed elsewhere, but I have been searching without success.

Basically when I have a book with multiple authors (say as 'Auth1 & Auth2 & Auth3' in Calibre), I want it to be sent to the Kobo so that I can find it listed under any one of the three authors, to address those circumstances where I can only remember the name of Auth1, Auth2 or Auth3.

Currently when I upload a book as above it is only appearing under Auth1, with no sign of the other two authors showing in the Kobo. Then, weirdly, I have some books that I uploaded earlier where it appears on the Kobo as 'Auth1 & Auth2 & Auth3' as if that was the author's name, including the '&'s. These may be from when I had an earlier version of Kobo Utilities and/or Kobo (touch or extended) driver installed.

I've found these two threads that seem to suggest it should be done through a plugboard;

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ltiple+authors
https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...3&postcount=26

But for the life of me I cannot see anywhere in Kobo Utilities the option tick 'use plugboard'.

Then this post seems to be implying that the Kobotouch driver should convert the '&'s to the ','s used by Kobo automatically.

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...ltiple+authors

Any assistance, or any confirmation that this is not possible, much appreciated.

Kobo Libra Colour with latest version of Calibre, Kobo Utilities and Kobotouch driver (now that extended no longer needed/supported).

[palaran]

Ignore me, I'm an idiot - had set up everything correct in the plugboard .... except had was sure I had selected KOBOTOUCH ....but had somehow selected an entirely different device.

Plugboard now working as expected and feeding through to uploaded books.

Now to delete and re-upload the ones that are wrong on the device.

Mods - feel free to delete thread, or leave it here for posterity to my stupidity.

[Timboli]

This is certainly one of those annoying things about some ebooks.

On my device, I just create a variety of collections and place the ebook link where relevant.

So where I have more than one ebook by an author, any ebook they participate in will be added to their collection. Otherwise it goes as a single author entry in a Various collection.

With calibre I do it differently.

If the ebook is a co-authored one, and the list of author names is no greater than four authors, then each author name is separated by spaces and ampersands.

If there is more than four co-authors or the ebook is a various authors one (short story or omnibus collection), then the primary author name is just Various, and the author names, including any listed editor, get relocated to Comments and as Tags.

I primarily do this because I hate too many author names in the Author name column, for just one ebook. So I restrict it to a manageable number.

In any case, author names always go into Tags for me, which means you can click on a tag that is an author name, and every ebook featuring that author is then shown.

I remove all other tags, except I would add a tag for something like Robin Hood or Sherlock Holmes etc ... where a series is not restricted to just one author.

Many authors or publishers abuse the Tag field, which makes it pointless, so I long ago decided to just wipe the lot.

There should be a Genre field, that is limited to four values.
Just as there should be Co-Authors and Various Authors fields.

[Sirtel]

No need to use Tags to see all the books by an author. You can do it using just a keyboard shortcut.

As to the Genre and Co-author fields, you do know you can create your own fields in Calibre, don't you? And choose whichever way you want to populate them, including a fixed set of values.