What controls where Kindle places the author in author sort?

[Mark76]

Hello, I am posting this in the Calibre forum because it is in the context of using Calibre.

I have two .mobi files from Project Gutenberg of Gulliver's Travels, one I got some years ago and an updated one I got today. When I use Calibre to send the older one to my Kindle, it appears under "S" (for Swift). When I use Calibre to send the newer one to my Kindle, it appears under "J" (Jonathan, between books whose authors' last names begin with H and K).

I have edited the metadata so that, for both books, the Author field is "Swift, Jonathan" and the Author sort field is "Swift, Jonathan"; they are, as far as I can see, identical for the two books. I have looked in the metadata.calibre file on my Kindle and I see no relevant difference between the two books (other than a slight difference in title).

What is causing them to appear in different places in the sort on the Kindle? What can I change so that the updated version of this book appears under "S"? (Where is the emoji for "This is driving me crazy"?)

I would be happy to follow up with more details or the files themselves if it would help.

Thank you!

[Mark76]

OK, so, I got it to work, but I have no idea why it worked. I converted MOBI to MOBI, and checked the box that says "Use author sort for author." (I then sent that converted file to the Kindle, and it appeared in the correct place under last name.) But why did it work? If the value of Author sort was "Swift, Jonathan," how did checking this box and doing the conversion create a result any different from having the Author field be "Swift, Jonathan"?

[Mark76]

Well, I see in a post from 9-13-2010, Isherwood writes:

I had a number of books in Calible from Baen free library that had bad author data or even no author data when pushed to the Kindle. Even after updating meta data in Calibre it wasn't right on the Kindle. The problem is that the Calibre metadata isn't used by the Kindle, it uses the author field in the MOBI file. Its author sort uses expects the string to be in the format "lastname, firstname" (not the space after the comma needs to be there).

I tried using Calibre to convert my books from PRC to MOBI and that helped the ones with no author at all on the Kindle but now the sort order was wrong. I had the Calibre author name set as "Firstname lastname" and author sort as "lastname, firstname". The trick was in checking what was in the MOBI files using the reader window in Calibre and viewing the book properties. It had the MOBI author field as "firstname lastname".

OK, so that is useful to know: Calibre metadata isn't used by the Kindle (?). Rather, the Kindle goes off something internal to the MOBI file. Where in the "reader window" can you view the "book properties"? (I do see the author's name in the text of the book, but I don't think it got changed from "Jonathan Swift.")

Thanks!

[Mark76]

p.s. I just did the same thing with a MOBI of Hume's Treatise of Human Nature, from Project Gutenberg. Converted from MOBI to MOBI, with box checked for Use Author sort for author. "Hume, David" is in the Author sort field. Sent to Kindle. On my Kindle, the book appears under "D."

Perhaps I am asking too much, but I would just like to see books by the same author all in the same place!

[theducks]

I suspect Your metadata in Calibre is messed up. (cuz this is NOT an issue with Kindles)
Get (and use ) The Quality check Plugin and run the various checks on the metadata.
Between: the FIX section of the QC PI and Metadata edit (bulk mode) , you should quickly correct a lot of those kinds of errors.
(bulk mode MDE has ticks to do various field sorts, CaseChanges and a lot more.)
(FIX part of the QC PI, can standardize Initials and name Fn Ln <> Ln, Fn )

[Mark76]

OK thank you, I will give that a try! Much appreciated.