Template:TitleFields:Author


 * Author - The name of the author of the work. This will be duplicated from the publication author field for novels, anthologies, collections and omnibuses.  The name should be entered exactly as it actually appeared in the publication. This includes pseudonyms, abbreviated names ("I. Asimov" instead of "Isaac Asimov", "Robert Heinlein" instead of "Robert A. Heinlein"), etc.  As with the title, take the name from the title page in preference to the cover or spine of the book. However in a collection or anthology, take the author for individual stories, essays, and other short content from that listed at the start of the story or essay, if such a listing is present and differs from the table of contents or title page. (Many collections will not separately list an author for each story, but in some cases a pseudonym is listed for some but not all entries. In such cases, use the listed pseudonym  and create a VT entry if needed.) An exception is for fictional essays, which are written as if by a character in the story, often as an introduction or afterword.  Even if these are signed by the fictional character, they should be recorded as by the actual author of the work.  Note that if you are cloning a publication, this field is not editable for existing content records.
 * Anonymous or uncredited works. If a work is credited to "Anonymous", then put "Anonymous" in the author field.  The same applies for any obviously similar pseudonym, such as "Noname".  If the work is not credited at all, use "uncredited", with a lower case "u".  (If you are working from a secondary source which does not specify the author, but does not explicitly state that no author is credited in the publication, use "unknown" rather than "uncredited".) This applies to stories and essays that are not credited (often the case for short announcements in magazines, for example), and artwork that is not attributed and for which no signature can be identified.  If a work by its nature has no author or editor, use "N/A"; this applies to unedited letter columns.  Letter columns with embedded editorial responses should be credited to whoever writes the responses, or to "uncredited" if this is not obvious.  If a work is attributed to a role, e.g. "Editor" or "Publisher", then use that name as the author, even if you have clear evidence as to who the author really is.  For example, editorials in magazines were frequently uncredited, or credited to "The Editor"; these should be entered with the Author field set to "The Editor".  The intent is that the record made from the publication should reflect what can be found in the publication.  If there is external evidence (such as a collection of editorials from a magazine, making it clear who the author was) that identifies the author, then you can add a variant title to that item, using the real name.  This will attach the work to the true author's bibliography, without giving incorrect data about what is actually in the source publication.
 * Case. Case should be regularized.  A few magazines and books had typographical conventions that include, for example, printing an author's name in all lower case, or all upper case.  These should be converted to leading capitals.  If a name includes an element that typically is not capitalized, it should be uncapitalized regardless of how it is presented in the publication.  For example, if a magazine gives a story as by "L. Sprague De Camp", the name should be entered as "L. Sprague de Camp".  Author names that vary only in capitalization are not tracked as variants.
 * Initials. Initials should normally be entered followed by a period and a space as "Gordon R. Dickson" or "K. D. Wentworth", even if the period or space is omitted in the publication. However, when it is clearly the author's choice to omit the period, or when the author has a single letter name that is not an initial (e.g. "Harry S Truman") the period should be omitted. In the very rare case where an author prefers two (or more) initials as if they were a name (such as "TG Theodore"), without a period or space, and is so credited, we follow the author's preference. A possible clue to such cases occurs when most authors have initials shown with period and space, but a particular author is handled differently in a magazine or anthology. Checking other sources, such as a Wikipedia article or the author's web site, is a good idea. Such non-standard forms should be mentioned in a publication or title note.
 * Short stories and artwork. For short stories that appear in magazines and anthologies, the author's name should be taken from the story heading, rather than from the table of contents, if there is one.  However, as with titles, this is not particularly important, and if they differ, and one is the generally used canonical form of an author's name, take the canonical one -- e.g. if the story heading says "P.J. Farmer" but the table of contents has "Philip Jose Farmer" then use the latter.  Similarly, if you are entering the artist for interior illustrations, and the artist is credited as "Emsh", enter "Emsh", but if the contents page says "Illustrations by Ed Emshwiller", feel free to enter "Ed Emshwiller" as the artist even if the individual stories assign them to "Emsh".  In tables of contents, magazines sometimes abbreviated long names (e.g. collaborations) to fit into the available space, but used longer forms of the names on the story titles.  In these cases the longer form of the names should be used.
 * Pseudonyms. If you know that a particular author's name is a pseudonym, leave it as the pseudonym rather than changing it to the real name.  The only exception is when a reprint shows both the original and subsequent names.  For example, Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" books were originally published under the pseudonym of Paul French, but were later reprinted with the cover giving both names: "by Isaac Asimov, writing as Paul French".  In these cases you can simply give "Isaac Asimov" as the author.  When a book is known to be ghost-written, this should be treated as a pseudonym; the ghost-writer will eventually show up as having a pseudonym of the well-known author, but that data is not entered via this field.
 * Accented characters. If you are entering a name such as "Philip José Farmer" that is printed with an accented e, that accented character should be reproduced in your entry of the name. Two versions of an author's name that are printed with and without accents are treated as variants; you should not convert one form to another.  However, if an accented form is given on a story title, but an unaccented form is given on the table of contents, use the accented form as the standard.
 * Collaborations. If a story has two authors, make the first author you enter the author who is first, alphabetically.  The ISFDB distinguishes between a story by "Robert E. Howard and L. Sprague de Camp" and one by "L. Sprague de Camp and Robert E. Howard".  Since the order of author entry does not indicate primary author, use alphabetical order.
 * Writers "with" other writers. In some cases a writer is quoted as writing a story "with" another author; this can indicate that the more famous author did little more than lend their name to a project which was written almost entirely by a lesser known author.  However, if both names appear on the title page, both names should be entered, in alphabetical order.  A note can be added to the note field explaining the situation and giving a source.
 * Ranks, suffixes, prefixes. If an author is given as "Captain Robert L. Stone" then that should be entered in the database.  Abbreviated versions of the rank should be entered as given, rather than expanded.  For example, during World War II, on at least one occasion Amazing Stories printed an issue of stories from active service members, giving their ranks as part of the author attribution.  These ranks should be included in the author names, and made into variant names for the relevant authors.  Suffixes such as "Jr" should follow a comma and space, and be followed by a period if they are abbreviations.  This should be regularized if they are not presented this way in the publication.  E.g. "Sam Merwin Jr" should be entered as "Sam Merwin, Jr."; similarly, it's "Edward Elmer Smith, Ph.D."; or  "Frederick C. Durant, III".  Other prefixes and suffixes should follow analogous rules.