Multiple stories, one book

[jecilop]

Originally Posted by cvlowe

If I set Calibre to sort by "series" then all my series are all sorted out of the 'authors' at the bottom of the book list. If I sort by author, then the Bolo series gets scattered all over the place.

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@cvlowe,
I don't follow this portion. Do you have a screen capture or can you list an example of what's wrong here?

I sort by series (that have multiple authors), and my series group together. I that's what I want to focus on, then it's easy to access anything labeled as that series (assuming all series labels are the same - The Chronicles of Narnia will list differently than just Chronicles of Narnia if entered differently and will not show in order or when clicking the series shortcut link in the book details panel - making sure you use autocomplete is key to keeping this consistent and a major timesaver).
I often shortcut to series as needed by the search bar and typing the keywords or getting to one book and then following the book details link (one of the best things ever added to Calibre) or just scrolling through my books grouped by series (series names are now cleaned up).

I have some series where short stories related or in sequence with the series are contained in a collection/anthology. I just go ahead and enter the series and number with that collection so that when sorted or searched by series it comes up.
Now, if the collection has stories from multiple series, that gets trickier. In most cases, I don't care. There aren't that many. I may not them in the comments, however, with the descriptions listed (whether from metadata download or copy/paste from the book or web) so that they would show if I searched the series name to see what it "hits' on as long as comments are included in the default search parameters I set up.
There might be a "fancier" way to handle this. Perhaps that's is what Kovid described in his post about custom columns. However, I haven't put that thought together.
I have A LOT OF SERIES books and many with different authors. My method has worked very efficiently. Of course, you could always pull an excerpt from a collection and make it a unique book entry. It's reasonably easy with the Epub Split plug-in. I've done it for a few things because I didn't want to deal with the bundle as it was (3 authors, unrelated stories, each in their own series). Still, those were few.

Personally, just as a helpful reference I also add a Tag for books in series that have multiple authors (Multi-author series). It can be a helpful reference, but you have to remember to add the tag.

I also have some helpful advice for spin-off series that are better read after the original but are sometimes referred to in their own sequences. I won't provide that here as it may not matter to you, but feel free to post or send me a message.

I hope this info does help. Send or post for me anything you can/want to share so I can understand the problem better if I've missed the mark.

I can note that I've managed library management of over 12,000 entries without having to create truly custom columns to do so. I only just recently created one for relatable printed book page counts. This means the system has worked well without to much "effort" to find what I want - after I set the basic data correctly, of course.

I am a little curious as to the custom column Kovid mentioned above and will play around with it when I have the time to see if it can improve anything such as those few collections that have multiple series contained inside. It never hurts to know more.

Remember to let Calibre do the work for you (I was used to doing so much manually it took me awhile to realize that Calibre was more than just a "listing" database.

Some advice on updating your metadata:
1) Use the download meta feature. If it doesn't return enough info or good info or just nothing at all, then....
2) Check that the ISBN number is already in the blank. If NOT, do a quick google search or look in the book to get and paste it in (I think the format has to be isbn:....but there is a macro button there to help with that). I found that if I put the missing ISBN where books aren't returning any to little data, that helps it search and usually gets better returns. Also, make sure the title is "clean" as some books put a bunch of description in their titles that mess with the search. Keep it straight forward and/or completely drop stuff after colons or in parentheses. If it returns in the meta search, you can let it override (assuming your settings are for that) or modify afterward.
3) Make sure you have at least 4 sources for your meta info (see preferences)
4) If these are insufficient, you can always and easily google or go to author sites and copy/past info into the comments. Typically, you will also see info like published date which could be entered if needed or desired.
5) If needed, you can also drag/drop a cover photo from the web onto the book cover when in Edit Metadata as long as the photo is set up the traditional way on the web.

[jecilop]

@cvlowe,

I forgot to mention somewhat quick access to series from the Tags browser also. Again, this is conditional on you having them entered consistently.

[cvlowe]

When sorting by author, this is what I mean:



That's with the "author sort" field manually tweaked to contain "Laumer, Keith" as the first entry. I suppose I could delete all the other authors from that field to get the sort correct, but it's just a minor inconvenience at this point solved by sorting by series!

For "spin off" or multiple series I added a custom SubSeries column. Series is then the "main" series column and SubSeries gets additional info- for example for Ringworld books, "Known Space" is the Series and numbered according to a suggested reading order, while Ringworld will be the SubSeries numbered according to it's series number.

I also created a seperate "Meta" yes/no column so I can check off the books I've verified the metadata for- I could have avoided that by updating metadata as I added books but I added a lot of books all at once and am in the process of cleaning them up (about 10-15 books a day). I'll probably delete that field once I get caught up! I do download meta info for books that need it, but even then have to clean it up manually after. I'm to the point now where the only fields I really care about are Author, Title, Series/SubSeries, Comments and a good quality cover image.

[jecilop]

@cvlowe
Everything you said sounds very similar to what I do. In fact, I was just playing with that extra series style column and considering if I may utilize it more.

Re: Author sort issue and series...It seems a non-issue. You'll never get series in order that way, but as you realized series sort is the way to go. EVEN BETTER, if series is your focus, just click either the Series tag (or subseries tag) in the tags pane OR click the series link that shows in the book details pane if you have it showing at the right. Either give ONLY the books in that series. You can also set the subseries column info to be visible in the book details if it doesn't do so by default.

A suggestion on your "Meta/I'm working on it/It's complete column":
I have had the same overall approach and care about the same items you mentioned. As I got going and doing a lot, I realize my patterns and what Calibre could do. I found I didn't like losing space with custom columns unless really necessary. They were also an extra field to mess with and extra access to update individually or in mass. That time didn't seem worth it for what I was doing, especially when I used to just have files named with the 3 things that matter most which I would read and move on. So I came up with this efficient pattern for new books and clean-up.

I utilize just another tag to help with this allowing mass imports to be handled as I can.
1) I set an "auto tag" to apply when importing new books. I call it *new. (Preferences/add books) The star at the front helps it to show first in my tags field for easy notice (I've also recently added some auto coloring to the tags field so it jumps out at me as I scroll through things and add more - auto color is GREAT!). I can also just click that tag and see all of those books if I choose to do that way. There are other factors that make it easy for me, but it would just be wordy to share what you would probably see you can do with tags if you choose something like this. I "fix", then I delete the tag.

2) I also use a tag called "SERIES" as a nice reference for not only showing all books that are parts of series but also to ensure I've included the series field info when possible. In some cases, collections have a tag of SERIES to let me know they contain something even if not identified yet.

3) Just as an added step which has really cut down on time and boosted the end results, I may import and do a quick check of name formatting and titles and quick, but incomplete tag overview. This gets an added tag of "**" to let me know it at least sorts with other stuff as I want and will show up in Find Duplicates searches. I can get the meta stuff later.

4) When I complete my editing of a group of books, I tend to add a special tag "__" to let me know I've fully complete the review. I then remove the ** and *new. __ shows up first in the tag field. Tags if any with preceding *'s show next, and then all else alphabetically (alphabet. only in that field).

5) I keep my tags within a strict overall group, so this doesn't overload me.


It works well. It's easy to add or remove tags via batch edit metadata when you are doing group at a time. Individually isn't that difficult either.

A thought on authors an author sort. How you sort authors is completely according to personal taste. I make my name and sort field the same - FIrst Last (or First Last & First Last & ... for mult. authors on a book).
I sort by author from time to time (will use first in entry), but that just help see what's "__" and what's "*new" grouped in a different overview manner. If I seek a particular author ONLY anymore, I just use either the tags pane OR just type " author:NAME HERE and get it easily returned OR author:"=NAME HERE" .
ALSO, the BOOK DETAILS pane can work for or against you in quick searches you based on your setup. I LOVE THIS RECENT CHANGE. You may notice (if in latest Calibre) that the author field shows as a link (check your Pref/Look&Feel/Book Details for what you want to show). This link could do ONE OF THREE operations based on what you tell it under book details default author link template.
1) by default it searches for the author on wikipedia
2a) set to "search-calibre" - clicking this shows all books with that author as an entry
2b) I discovered, however, that IF you have a link such as an author website entered for the author (from Manage authors), it will open that link.

2a is a fast way to move around!!!!

There might be some other templates (programs) you can put in that default blank, but they would have to be researched in the manual.


This process has saved me TONS of time. So many things I wish I knew early on, but as always it takes working with it to see the efficiency and ease of use possible.

If you want more info or better explanations of these, ask away.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by jecilop

This link could do ONE OF THREE operations based on what you tell it under book details default author link template.
1) by default it searches for the author on wikipedia
2a) set to "search-calibre" - clicking this shows all books with that author as an entry
2b) I discovered, however, that IF you have a link such as an author website entered for the author (from Manage authors), it will open that link.

It can also open a folder, which could have url files to the authors wikipedia, bookseller and publisher pages, their blog, obit clips, interviews mp3's etc etc. In this case the Author Link would refer to a file system object ie "file:///blah blah". Obviously it could refer to a file, but I find folders more useful because I can just drop things into the folders as when I find useful things.

The Similar books and Quickview are also useful features to find books etc, they are in the book list context menu.

BR

[jecilop]

ooohh..thank you, @BetterRed. I was wondering about potential with that.

I'd also forgotten to explore Quickview (keystroke Q) (read about it recently) and just did so from your post..VERY NICE feature...

[jecilop]

One more important thing..I've just started using this somewhat new feature.

As mentioned, creating a tag to show the "status" of my edits is helpful and managed in one place easily. Color options are available with this too.

BUT maybe you like a dedicated column for this status. I used to use one for read, keep but got tired of the separate entry and separate entry screens and extra steps.

Then I realized that...
You can keep your unique column and set a behavior in that column based on what you put in tags.
For example, if I've read it I give a tag of READ. That then triggers a special icon to show in another column without me entering something again (Preferences, custom icons tab at right). I can always still search just for READ books based on the tag or even create a virtual library.

This can be very handy when visuals are preferable to words or color or in combination.

I love it. I also find myself quickly adding another tag column now that is just library management (the *new, **, __, among others) to be separate from traditional tags. I'm trying to see if I really like it better that way. I can customize what does and doesn't show in my metadata book jacket this way too and they aren't mixed in with other tags in other views where it doesn't show alphabetically or just the presence isn't there. Book details viewing makes it an easy quicklook also.