Pen names

[Cynosarges]

Help! I can't see a good way to record authors who use pen names.

(I can't find any forum that addresses this problem. If there is a relevant forum, please point me in that direction)

Example: The author's full name is Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden
She writes under four different pen names, of which I have ebooks she has written under the pen names Megan Lindholm and Robin Hobb.

When I look up her data on the Internet Speculative Fiction database (www.isfdb.org), they list all books by the author, and separately list all books written using each pen name.

Can anyone suggest the best way to achieve similar functionality from Calibre? (I can't misuse the Series field, as she has written series using both pennames)

---

FYI Similar to the pen name, is the house name (or house pseudonym) where a publisher gets several different authors to write stories (usually in a series) using the same pen name. Since these, IMHO, tend to be hack writing, I doubt if I own many of them, so I don't see this as so much of a problem.

[Tarana]

In Calibre, if it is important to me, I list both the pen name and the author's name. For instance, Barbara Vine and Ruth Rendell are the same person. So all the Barbara Vine books are ALSO listed with Ruth Rendell as author. Nora Roberts also writes with the pen name J D Robb, but since I only read the J D Robb series with Eve Dallas, I just list it as J D Robb. Use an ampersand "&" to create folders for both author and pen name.

There was some brief discussion of this some years ago (search 'aliases'). That's where I found out how to use the ampersand.

[DaltonST]

https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=269911 Job Spy has a Pseudonym/Real Author tool that can be run individually or automatically as part of the JS Quality Fix tools. See JS Customizing.

If you want to add notes and links to a Pseudonymous Author custom column, and/or add notes and links to Authors and associate them with the Pseudonymous Authors, you can do so with Entities Manager at https://www.mobileread.com/forums/sh...d.php?t=313935


DaltonST

[BetterRed]

@Cynosarges - I create a note in Evernote for the authors real name -- e.g. Margaret Astrid Lindholm Ogden -- and paste the link for that note into the Author Link field in Manage Authors for the pen names -- Megan Lindholm, Robin Hobb, etc, etc.

When I click on an Author name in Book Details that has an Evernote link in the Link field, Evernote will start if its not running and open up that note. In Evernote I can store whatever info I want for the Author - including links back to calibre via calibre-server urls.

Added: I create Evernote notes for Authors because calibre has no natural place to store author information, using it as I do for pen-names is a fortuitous by-product.

BR

[theducks]

I made a custom (like Authors) column for pseudonyms
But I late expanded its usage for when there were a big list of authors (collections...), and replaced the entry in the standard {authors} with either editors_name (ed) or <various>

Dont forget to create a search linkage in preferences: Searching

[BetterRed]

Another way to deal with pen-names might be to put them into a User Category, there's a template function to access UCs. You probably wouldn't want to use UCs for anything but pen-names. You can search on UCs and they appear in the tag browser.

BR

[capink]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

Another way to deal with pen-names might be to put them into a User Category, there's a template function to access UCs. You probably wouldn't want to use UCs for anything but pen-names. You can search on UCs and they appear in the tag browser.

BR

I was looking for a solution to this recently and this is exactly how I'm dealing with pen names now. However, I don't understand why would you need a template function for this.

Anyway, to help anyone who is interested in the same solution I attached a picture with an example below for author Nora Roberts who uses two pen names: Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb. You just need to put the appropriate alias in the author field of each book (No need to use multiple aliases per book).

After that I created a user category called alias. Under the alias user category, I created sub-category called NoraRoberts to which I added all the pen names (Nora Roberts and J.D Robb).

Now whenever I click on the sub-category alias.NoraRoberts it returns all the books created by the author no matter what alias was used. If you prefer using the search box, just type "@alias.NoraRoberts:true" in the search box and it will return the same result. You can proceed to do the same steps for other authors.

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by capink

I was looking for a solution to this recently and this is exactly how I'm dealing with pen names now. However, I don't understand why would you need a template function for this.

Anyway, to help anyone who is interested in the same solution I attached a picture with an example below for author Nora Roberts who uses two pen names: Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb. You just need to put the appropriate alias in the author field of each book (No need to use multiple aliases per book).

After that I created a user category called alias. Under the alias user category, I created sub-category called NoraRoberts to which I added all the pen names (Nora Roberts and J.D Robb).

Now whenever I click on the sub-category alias.NoraRoberts it returns all the books created by the author no matter what alias was used. If you prefer using the search box, just type "@alias.NoraRoberts:true" in the search box and it will return the same result. You can proceed to do the same steps for other authors.

Thank you, I was adding a column for pseudonym, but this is much easier.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by capink

I was looking for a solution to this recently and this is exactly how I'm dealing with pen names now. However, I don't understand why would you need a template function for this.

My mentioning of the template function for UCs was additional info in case anyone needed it.

I got the idea of using UCs for pseudonyms/pen-names when I was looking at the UC template function in a different context, so it was the trigger for my tentative idea.

Glad it worked for you.

@Terisa - I'm surprised you didn't think of yourself

BR

[Terisa de morgan]

Originally Posted by BetterRed

@Terisa - I'm surprised you didn't think of yourself

BR

I'm a creature of habit, and unless I have a pressuring need (and pen names isn't, only a cosmetic feature), I don't explore for getting more info. And user categories always have looked very complicated to me (if we are talking about series info and python function, you would be surprised about all the info I have in calibre )

[Martin]

Originally Posted by capink

I was looking for a solution to this recently and this is exactly how I'm dealing with pen names now. However, I don't understand why would you need a template function for this.

Anyway, to help anyone who is interested in the same solution I attached a picture with an example below for author Nora Roberts who uses two pen names: Nora Roberts and J.D. Robb. You just need to put the appropriate alias in the author field of each book (No need to use multiple aliases per book).

After that I created a user category called alias. Under the alias user category, I created sub-category called NoraRoberts to which I added all the pen names (Nora Roberts and J.D Robb).

Now whenever I click on the sub-category alias.NoraRoberts it returns all the books created by the author no matter what alias was used. If you prefer using the search box, just type "@alias.NoraRoberts:true" in the search box and it will return the same result. You can proceed to do the same steps for other authors.

I use this solution, but have also created a custom column that shows me if an alias is available.


Since I don't always know the alias name, I first have to search the author name for it in the keyword browser.

I would now like to see the alias name displayed as a clickable link instead of yes/no.

(as above in the search bar)



Another point is also the case when a book has multiple authors. An alias search link should then appear for each author.

If there is no alias, then nothing.

Is something like this possible and if so, how? Sorry for my bad English (Google) and thanks in advance for an answer.
P.S.: I've read the forum a lot but couldn't find it and I'm not a programmer.

[theducks]

You also need to make entries in:
Preferences: Searching (2 places)

FWIW I move All the Authors there (when more than 3) and set The regular column with either the Books 'edited by': Joe Smith (ed) or <Various>
This was my way if keeping filenames short for my original reader that used them for selection.

The column originally started out for a place to put the Authors Real name when the cover had a Pen Name (or the book was later released with the real name, so I put the other one there) .

[Martin]

I read your info and tried it right away, unfortunately it doesn't work for me.
I probably created the custom column wrong, use the capink variant with a yes/no query.
Will test some more, but I think your statement is not exactly what I'm looking for.

Nonetheless, thank you for your quick reply.

[theducks]

The other column is an like 'Authors' type.
Penname is the 'collective' of {authors} and {#psudo4}

ALL of those also appear in the Tag Browser

[chaley]

Although I don't use pen names, for fun I looked at how I would solve the problem for myself.

I started with @capink's idea to use a 3-level Aliases user category: Aliases.real_name.pen_names.

I then wanted to add links to book details for:

• All books by the person with this pen name. By this I mean all books by the middle level of the Aliases category: real_name.
• All pen names for the author of this book. These links search for books by the displayed pen names.

I also wanted to add a column icon to the author column indicating that that an author for the book has pen names.

I added two composite columns: Real names and Pen names. The Real Names column is a "Column built from other columns, behaves like tags." The Pen names column is a "Column built from other columns, show as HTML."

This screen capture shows the result. The comma in the names in the Real names column looks a bit weird because commas cannot in in values in tags-like composite columns. I used a quill image for the column icon.


Clicking a "Real name" link will select all books by that author, including pen names. Clicking a "Pen name" link will select only books with that pen name as an author.

The pen names column is implemented using calibre search URLs.

Here are the column definitions and templates. The templates need a bit more work for performance.

Real names:

python:
def evaluate(book, context):
	from collections import defaultdict
	from calibre.utils.icu import sort_key

	alias_category = 'Aliases.'
	alias_len = len(alias_category)
	fake_comma = '⸴'

	db = context.db.new_api
	aliases = defaultdict(list)
	# Parse the user categories, getting the real names. Build an inverted dict
	# pen_name: list(real_names). Why a list? Because a pen name can be used by
	# more than one real author.
	for real_name,pen_names in {cat[alias_len:]:vals
			for cat,vals in db.pref('user_categories').items()
				if cat.startswith(alias_category)}.items():
		for pn in pen_names:
			aliases[pn[0]].append(real_name)

	# For each author (pen name) for this book, get the real author(s)
	ans = set()
	for aut in book.authors:
		if aut in aliases:
			for real_name in aliases[aut]:
				# Replace commas with a fake comma because commas are used 
				# by calibre to separate values
				ans.add(real_name.replace(',', fake_comma) )
	return ', '.join(sorted(ans, key=sort_key))

Pen names:

python:
def evaluate(book, context):
	from collections import defaultdict
	from calibre.utils.icu import sort_key

	alias_category = 'Aliases.'
	link_break = '<br/>'

	db = context.db.new_api

	# Build a set of other pen names for each author that is a pen name.
	# This loop only processes categories prefixed with alias_category
	all_pen_names = defaultdict(set)
	for pen_names in [[v[0] for v in vals]
			for cat,vals in db.pref('user_categories').items()
				if cat.startswith(alias_category)]:
		for pn in pen_names:
			all_pen_names[pn].update(pen_names)

	# Build the set of all pen names for all the authors of this book. Use a set
	# to remove duplicates.
	auts = set()
	for p in book.authors:
		if p in all_pen_names:
			auts.update(all_pen_names[p])

	# Now build the list of calibre search link URLs , one for each pen name.
	ans = list()
	for p in sorted(auts, key=sort_key): 
		# Replace any spaces with non-breaking spaces to prevent a name from
		# wrapping over two lines.
		ans.append(f'''<a href="calibre://search/_?eq='''
			f'''{('authors:"='+p + '"').encode().hex()}">'''
			f'''{p.replace(' ', '&nbsp;')}</a>''')

	# Combine all the URLS into a single string with the URLS separated by link_break.
	return link_break.join(ans)

EDIT 1:

• Templates: added comments, now sort using locale rules, small performance enhancements.
• It is best to hide the pen names column in the book list. It doesn't show anything useable and would be calculated when it isn't needed, for example during scrolling.
• Change 'alias_category' if you use something other than "Aliases" as the alias parent user category name.
• In 'Pen Names', change 'link_break' to ', ' (comma space) if you don't want each pen name on a separate line.

EDIT 2: added links to @capink's post describing the user category setup.