Help:Screen:NewNovel

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This page is a help or manual page for the ISFDB database. It describes standards or methods for entering or maintaining data in the ISFDB database, or otherwise working with the database. Other help pages may be found via the category below. To discuss what should go on this page, use the talk page. If, after exploring the Help system, you still have a question, please visit the Help desk and let us know. We probably know the answer, but we need your help to know what we left out of the help pages. If you are new to editing the ISFDB, please see Help:Getting Started. For more on this and other header templates, see Header templates.

The New Novel ISFDB screen allows you to enter information for a new publication that is a novel. The screen is similar to the other "New . . ." screens, such as "New Magazine" and "New Collection", except that the "Content" part of the screen is labeled "Additional Content".

The "Additional Content" section is used to enter forewords, introductions, interior art, essays, excerpts from forthcoming books, reviews, interviews and other information that may appear in Novel publications -- see Help:Screen:NewPub for detailed instructions on what to enter in the "Additional Content" section. Do not re-enter the main Novel record in this section.

The screen is accessible by clicking on the "Add New Novel" link in the left navbar. This link is visible from the ISFDB home page, and from other display pages within the ISFDB.

The following is a detailed definition of exactly what should be entered in each field on this screen. These definitions are intentionally very complete. If you are looking for a quick summary of how to use this screen, please refer to Help:Getting Started which gives a simplified description of how to enter a book's publication details.

• Title - The title of the publication. The title should appear exactly as published, even though this may be different from the canonical title.
  • Books. For a book, use the title page to get the title. This is typically the page with the copyright information on the back. Don't use the title on the cover, spine, or page running heads.

    Some books, mostly hardcovers, have both a "half-title" and a "full-title" page. The half-title generally comes first, and omits the author's name and the sub-title, if any. It may include a list of other works in the series, or by the author. The full-title lists both title and author, and normally gives the publisher's name, and often the publisher's city or cities. If both are present, take the title from the full-title page.

  • Omnibuses. If the book you are entering is an omnibus, it may have multiple title pages, one for each novel it contains. In these cases, if there is an omnibus title, such as "SF Special No. 33", enter that. Otherwise enter the individual titles, separated by a slash, like this: "Conan the Conqueror/The Sword of Rhiannon".
  • Magazines. For the title of a magazine, the best source is the information (often below the table of contents) about the publisher, giving the address; this often says something like "IF is published monthly by . . . ." If this is not present, the magazine cover and the heading on the contents page are about equal in priority; again take a good guess. The name on the spine should be used last. You may find sometimes that the publication information only says "Published by . . ." without giving the magazine name; and then the title on the contents may differ from the cover. In these cases, either choose something that seems reasonable to you, or agree an approach for that publication on the magazine's project wiki page. Also, please note that the title should be of the form Magazine Title, Date, such as Asimov's Science Fiction, June 2004. This helps differentiate different issues of the magazine. See the note on missing and variant dates below for more on formatting this part of the title.
  • Subtitles. If the title has a subtitle, enter it, with a colon and a space used to separate the title from the subtitle. For example, the 1986 edition of George MacDonald's "Lilith" has "Lilith" on the title page, and below that, in a smaller font, "A Romance". This should be entered as "Lilith: A Romance". It is sometimes a judgement call as to whether a change of font or a colon indicates a subtitle or just some creative license on the part of the typesetter. If in doubt, take your best guess and document the guess on the publication's wiki page.
  • Case. Titles should have case regularized unless there is some specific evidence that the author intended certain letters to be in a specific case. For example, if the title is "EXTRO" in all caps, the title should be entered as "Extro". This applies to the titles of short stories as well as books. Typesetting style is not important; for example, Fantastic Universe typically printed story titles in lower case, but these titles are regularized for the ISFDB. Regularized case means that the first word is capitalized, and all later words are also capitalized except for "and", "the", "a", "an", "for", "of", "in", "on", "by", "at", "from", and "to". Hyphenated words have the first letter after the hyphen capitalized.
  • Symbols and punctuation. Strange symbols should be entered if appropriate typographical characters exist. If not, do what you can and make a note as necessary on the wiki page. For example, John Varley's story "Press Enter" is often titled with a black rectangle, indicating a computer cursor, at the end. Other characters should be entered in Unicode if possible; this includes accented characters, and symbols such as em-dashes. An ellipsis should be entered as the sequence "space", "period", "space", "period", "space", "period". If the ellipsis is in the middle of the title, it should be entered with a space after it as well, prior to the start of the following word. Em-dashes should be entered directly adjacent to the words on both sides. Hyphens and spaces make different titles: "Hell Fire", "Hellfire", and "Hell-Fire" are three different titles, and should be entered as such. If you are using a Windows computer, you can use the Windows Character Map to enter unusual characters; to access the Character Map, go to Start->All Programs->Accessories->System Tools.
  • Fonts. Sometimes a tile will have one or more words in italics, or in boldface, or in an unusual font. The ISFDB software would permit representing these via embedded HTML. However, this would mean that user searches that did not include the HTML would fail in many cases where they ought to succeed. Therefore, do not use embedded HTML to show font changes. For the same reason, do not use underscores to show _italics_, nor asterisks to show *boldface*, nor other typographical methods to show font in titles. If the font seems important, it can be shown and/or described in a note.
  • Missing or variant dates. The date part of a magazine title should be given after the title, following a comma and a space. The month should be given in full and then the year in full. If the issue is a quarterly, or a bimonthly, give the date in the form given on the magazine -- for example, "Fantastic Universe, June-July 1953" or "Interzone, Fall 1979". A hyphen should be used between two months used for a bimonthly issue. If the magazine has an overprinted date, then use the later date; this happened, for example, with some issues of the pulps, which were delayed in release and were overprinted with a later date to keep them on the newsstand for longer. If there is no apparent date, or the date is incomplete, a volume/issue number may be substituted. The date is always preferable, even if the magazine typically gives the issue number -- Interzone, for example, frequently quoted the issue number on the cover, only showing the date on the contents page. Information can also be drawn from bibliographic sources when useful, but this should always be noted in the "Note" field. For example, the first few issues of the British edition of Science Fiction Adventures are dated simply 1958, but per the Tuck encyclopedia these are in fact bimonthly, starting in March of that year. If you have access to such a bibliographic source you can use this data, but be sure to make it clear in the notes field what information was drawn from secondary sources. If you don't have access, and find yourself entering data for a magazine without clear date or numbering characteristics, it is best to post a query to the Community Portal page of the ISFDB Wiki and ask for assistance with that magazine. Some issues of the Australian magazine Void are not easily distinguished, for example.
• Author - The name of the author of the publication. 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.
  • Editors, authors, translators, etc. If the book has a known author (or authors), use that name (or names). If it is an anthology, use the name of the editor. If the book is a single-author collection or omnibus, but has an editor, as occasionally occurs, the editor does not appear in this field, the author does. An omnibus should show the names of the the authors of all included fiction. There is currently no support in the ISFDB for translators, or photographers; this information should just be entered in the notes field.
  • 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". This applies to editorship of anthologies that are not credited. If a work is attributed to a role, e.g. "Editor" or "Publisher", then use that name as the author, even if it 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. 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".
  • 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 convert 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 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 to two (or more) initials as if they were a name (such as "TG Theodore"), without 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.
  • 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, it doesn't matter which order you enter them in -- the ISFDB does not record any order internally regardless of how the authors are entered.
  • 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. 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.
• Add Author. If there is more than one author or editor for this publication, this button will create a second author field. As many authors as you wish can be added.
• Year - The date of publication. Dates are in the form YYYY-MM-DD, where month and day are filled in if known, otherwise they have the value 00. Under certain circumstances, it is allowable to use a date of 0000-00-00, which means that the publication date is unknown. Examples:

  1956-00-00
  1956-11-00
  1956-11-26

• 8888-00-00 means that the book has been announced but not published and is reserved for well known examples like Last Dangerous Visions.
• For books, to identify the year, try to spot a statement (often on the verso of the title page) that says something like "Published in June 2001"; the copyright date is often misleading, since works can be reprinted. Look out for signs that this is a reprint; indications often include a series of numbers (e.g. "3 4 5 6 7 8 9") at the bottom of the verso of the title page; this particular string indicates that this is a third printing. If you know you are holding a reprint, and there is no way to date that particular publication, leave the year field as 0000-00-00. It is sometimes possible to find dates of reprints from subsequent printings which list all printings and their associated dates; if you enter a date from a source like this, include a note explaining your deduction. Note that we are interested in recording each different reprint of a publication, since there can be some significant differences between them, such as cover art, or price.
• For magazines, the month on the cover is rarely the month of actual publication. However, since this is a well-known fact about magazine publication schedules, and also because there is no good way to determine actual publication date, both month and year should be given where possible. For bimonthly magazine dates, use the earlier month: "January-February 1957" should be entered as "1957-01-00", for example. If a bimonthly magazine only quotes a single month in the title, use that month. E.g. the March 1959 issue of Fantastic Universe was preceded by January 1959 and succeeded by May 1959; it should be entered as "1959-03-00". If a bimonthly issue spans a year boundary, such as a December-January 1960 bimonthly issue, use the earlier year and month: "1959-12-00". For magazine cover dates that cannot be assigned to a specific month, use the year only: "Spring 1943" is just entered as "1943-00-00".
• If you use a secondary source, such as a bibliography or sf encyclopedia, to find dates, make sure that you note the source of the information on the publication's bibliography wiki page or the publication's notes field.
• Note also that the publication date does not always perfectly match the calendar date. For example, a January issue of a magazine is usually available in December of the previous year, and often earlier than that. Books with a January publication date may often be bought in the closing weeks of the prior year; they will show the later year's copyright date, even though that year has not yet started. In these cases, the convention is to use the official publication date rather than to try to identify when a book actually first became available. If there is a large discrepancy -- for example if a book was printed but unexpectedly delayed before release -- then this can be noted in the notes field.

• Publisher - The name of the book's publisher. Use the official statement of publication where you can. The publisher has in the past not been a key entity in the ISFDB, but publisher and imprint support is in the process of being improved, and a process of determining canonical names for publishers and imprints is in progress. For the time being you are free to choose an imprint ("Ace Books"), a division ("Berkley") or the parent corporation ("Penguin Group (USA)") as you wish. Imprints are often a suitable choice since they may be genre specific. A good rule of thumb is to choose a publisher name that would not surprise the reader; thus "Del Rey Books" is a better choice for that imprint than "Ballantine Books", even though Del Rey was in fact an imprint of Ballantine, because Del Rey's imprint is the prominent label on the cover of those books, whereas "Ballantine" appears only in small print at best. However, if both an imprint and a publisher are listed, and particularly if both are known for publishing genre fiction, consider listing both. For example "Del Rey / Ballantine" may be an even better choice than either "Del Rey Books" or "Ballantine Books".

• For self-published works, fanzines, bibliographic pamphlets and the like, use the name of the editor/author if no other publisher information is visible. Sometimes a fan organization or something similar will be quoted as the publisher, e.g. for books or booklets issued as sf convention special publications: these are not strictly publishers, but should be treated as such for this field.
• Where multiple forms of a name exist, it is not important to always enter exactly the form of the name as it appears on the book. For example, an imprint may say "A Tor Book", "Tor", "Tor Books", "Tor Books Science Fiction", or "Tor: A Tom Doherty Associates Book". Sometimes several of these varying forms will be on a single book. These can be converted to a canonical form; in this case "Tor Books" would be a sensible choice. The ISFDB does not currently have a page to identify and document canonical forms for publishers but may do so in the future.
• Case should be regularized unless there is a clear reason not to. For example, a Tor book often gives the imprint name as "TOR Books"; this should be entered as "Tor Books". DAW, however, is an acronym, and so "DAW Books" is the correct form for that imprint. Publishers of magazines are often printed in uppercase -- e.g. Fantastic Universe's statement of printing shows "KING-SIZE PUBLICATIONS, INC." as the publisher; the form "King-Size Publications, Inc." should be used here.
• If you are entering both the imprint and publisher name, as in "Del Rey / Ballantine", then it should be entered as Imprint / Publisher with the imprint first, spaces around the slash, followed by the publisher name. Note, it's still ok to enter things like "Imprint, an imprint of Publisher". The things we want to avoid are the Imprint/Publisher (with no space) and Publisher / Imprint (imprint / publisher flipped around) and formats.
• Library records, and in some cases the copyright pages of books, often list publishers with a preceedign city, as "London: Mammoth Books Ltd" or "New York: Giant Press inc". In such cases, list only the actual name of the publisher, not the city. (Existing records shoould not be changed to matfch this standard without considering how to avoid data loss). The city or country can be listed in the notes field of the publisher record, or on an associated wiki page, or both. Where needed to avoid confusion, a country suffix may be used, so we might have, for example, "Mammoth Books (UK)" and "Mammoth Books (Canada)".
• Science Fiction Book Club books should be entered as "Publisher / SFBC" where Publisher is the publisher name stated on the publication. Also see How to enter a SFBC publication.

• Pages - The page count of the publication. For books, the general convention is to use the last printed page number. For magazines, the convention is to use the actual page count - including the cover. For example, early issues of Fantastic Universe had the pages numbered from 1 to 192, not counting the front or back covers. This would be entered as 196 pages. If a publication is not paginated, leave the field blank and put "Not paginated" in the note field.

• Some magazines that use a page numbering system that does not start from 1 in every issue. These are usually cases where the magazine has a volume and issue number, and the pagination restarts at 1 for every volume, but not every issue. In these cases, calculate the actual total number of pages, and add in additional page count to represent the covers. Enter this number. You should also make a note in the note field, e.g. "Actual page numbering runs from 193 to 384".
• When a book has a section with Roman numeral page numbers for introductory material, followed by Arabic numerals for the main text of the book, enter the page number as e.g. viii+320, where viii is the highest numbered page with a Roman numeral page number. Pages without numbers that fall between the two types of page numbering can be ignored.
• Books in dos-à-dos format, such as Ace doubles, have two sets of page numbers, one for each half of the book. This can be entered as "256+320" for example.
• It is fairly common for the last page of text in a book to have a different graphic layout which may not include a page number. The "last printed page number" rule would then use a page number before the end of the work. In these cases, count forward to the end of the text and use that as the last page number.

• Pub Format - This is the binding format of the publication. For books, commonly used formats are:

• hc - hardcover. Used for all hardbacks of any size. A book is a hardback if it is constructed so that the cover is intended not to be flexible; there exist leatherbound paperbacks, for example, and these should not be marked 'hc'.
• tp - Trade paperback. Used for anything larger than a paperback. Thus any book that is at least 7.25 in (or 19 cm) tall, or at least 4.5 in (11.5 cm) wide/deep, and is not a hardback, is a tp. ("height" and "width/depth" are the dimensions of the cover; neither should be read to mean "thick".) 7.5 in x 5 in is a common size, but there exist many variant sizes larger than this, all of these should be simply recorded as "tp". This includes large format artbooks in paper covers, for example.
• pb - Paperback. Typically 7 in x 4.25 in (18 cm x 11 cm) or smaller, though trimming errors can cause them to sometimes be slightly (less than 1/4 extra inch) taller or wider/deeper. For books as tall as 7.25 in or as wide/deep as 4.5 in see Trade Paperback (tp). Low-height paperbacks such as Ace Books from the fifties, and similar publications are about half an inch shorter. Such variations in size below the typical 7 in x 4.25" do not need to be noted unless significant. ("height" and "width/depth" are the dimensions of the cover; neither should be read to mean "thick".)
• ph -- Pamphlet. Used for short (in page count), unbound, staple-bound, or otherwise lightly bound publications.
• Digest -- includes both standard digest size, at about 7" x 4.5", and also large digest, such as recent issues of Asimov's, which are about 8.25" x 5.125".
• dos - Dos-a-dos. Use this for books published in dos-a-dos format, such as Ace doubles and Capra Press back to back books.
• ebook -- all electronic formats. Specify the particular formats available in the publication notes.
• audio -- use for all audio books, followed by an indicator of format, as:
  • audio (CD) -- Compact Disk
  • audio (CAS) -- Cassette tape
  • audio (DAT) -- Digital Audio Tape
  • audio (LP) -- Long Playing record (vinyl)
  • audio (MP3) -- Digital recording in MP3 format

• For magazines, use one of the following:

• Digest -- includes both standard digest size, at about 7" x 4.5", and also large digest, such as recent issues of Asimov's, which are about 8.25" x 5.125".
• pb -- For magazines published in a paperback format.
• Pulp -- the common pulp size: 6.5" x 9.5"
• Bedsheet -- e.g. early issues of Amazing; or the 1942-43 version of Astounding: 8.5" x 11.25"
• Tabloid -- e.g. the British Science Fiction Monthly: 11" x 16"
• A4 21 × 29.7 cm or 8.3 × 11.7 in -- Used by some UK and European magazines
• A5 14.8 × 21 cm or 5.8 × 8.3 in -- Used by some UK and European magazines

• For publications which don't fit the above categories, use the closest approximation and make a note in the note field. If a magazine is between sizes for the above categories, use the closest one and make a note. Small variations don't need to be noted; e.g. Interzone is generally a quarter-inch or sometimes more away from the standard bedsheet size, but can just be listed as bedsheet.

• Pub Type - Identifies the type of publication. It is a drop down menu of the following choices:
  • ANTHOLOGY. Used for anything containing fiction by more than one author. For example, "Late Knight Edition" contains stories by both Damon Knight and Kate Wilhelm, individually; this is an anthology, not a collection. If a book of Conan stories contains stories which are all partly or wholly by Robert E. Howard, it is a collection; if one or more of the stories is by Lin Carter or L. Sprague de Camp, not in collaboration with Howard, then the book is an anthology.
  • CHAPTERBOOK. This format is primarily used for separate publications of a single work of short fiction, even if bound as a standard paperback or hardcover, or in any other format. Such a publication may contain an essay or essays, may contain interior art, and may have cover art listed. Content records should be used to record the shortfiction, and any essay or interior art, just as with an anthology or collection. This publication type is also used for an ebook or audiobook edition of a single work of short fiction. This publication type may also used for anything smaller or flimsier than a standard paperback. These are often, but not always, saddle-stapled; publications from conventions are frequently in this format. However, if such a publication contains multiple works of fiction, it is usually better to list them as anthologies or collections, with a binding type of "ph" (pamphlet).
  • COLLECTION. A single-author collection. See notes under ANTHOLOGY, above. Note that the "single-author" can be a collaboration: e.g. a collection of stories by Frederik Pohl and C.M. Kornbluth would qualify as a collection. However, if such a collection included one story by Frederik Pohl alone, it would be regarded as a single-author collection of Frederik Pohl's. If it also contained one story by Kornbluth alone, it would be an anthology.
  • MAGAZINE. It can be difficult in some cases to determine if something should be regarded as a magazine or a book. Some magazines were published in book format; some books were published as series with letter columns and regular dates of publication. Borderline cases should be discussed on the magazine or book wiki pages, but generally a magazine must have a common title from issue to issue, and an enumeration or dating system of some kind. This still leaves anthology series such as New Worlds Quarterly as judgement calls. In these cases, look for a consensus on the publication bibliographic wiki page. If no discussion exists, use your best judgment and document the decision on the wiki page.
  • NONFICTION. Used for books that are predominantly or completely non-fiction. A single story in an essay collection of Isaac Asimov's does not make it a collection. This type supersedes the other types; if a book is non-fiction, you don't need to worry about whether it's a chapbook, or whether it is better described as a collection or an anthology. A publication that collects both non-fiction and fiction together should be classified by whichever appears to be predominant. Mixtures of both are more usual in magazines than in books, so the question does not arise often.
  • NOVEL. Used when the book is devoted to a single work of fiction. The addition of multiple short stories makes the book a collection, not a novel (A single story is a judgment call, see below). However, sample chapters placed at the end of a book for advertising reasons do not make a novel into a collection. If a book is packaged as a single volume work, and then republished as a multi-volume work, all the publications are novels; there is no need to classify the single volume work as an omnibus. Conversely, if a book is originally published as multiple volumes, and republished as a single volume, the latter is a novel unless the presentation within the single volume makes it clear that the works are presented as separate novels. For example, "The Lord of the Rings", by J.R.R. Tolkien, was originally published in three volumes; the single volume edition is to be categorized as a novel. Sometimes a novel is bound with a single short work of fiction by the same author (an example is this edition of The Misenchanted Sword). In such a case it is often preferred to class the publication as a novel with a "Bonus story" rather than a 2-item collection or omnibus. This is particularly true if the publication has the same title as the novel. It is a judgment call, however.
  • OMNIBUS. A publication may be classified is an omnibus if it contains multiple works that have previously been published independently, and at least one of them is a novel. However, generally this category should not be used unless the other categories do not seem appropriate. For example, if a publication contains stories that have previously been published independently in pamphlet form, this should be classified as an anthology. A collection such as Robert Heinlein's "The Past Through Tomorrow" should be categorized as a collection, although one of the works is a novel. "Omnibus" is appropriate for such publications as the Science Fiction Book Club's collections of three independent novels by different authors under one set of covers; or for a single-volume edition of all the Amber novels by Roger Zelazny. If none of the contents have been published before, the inclination should be to classify the publication as an anthology, rather than an omnibus, but this does not have to be an absolute rule. The distinction between "Omnibus" and the other types is somewhat subjective and may require discussion and consensus on the publication biblio wiki page.
  • Boxed sets. A boxed set will typically contain books that have their own ISBNs. In such cases the boxed set is not of interest, as it is only a form of packaging; a note can be made in note field for the books contained in the boxed set, but the boxed set itself does not need a separate entity. If a boxed set or other packaging format does not have separately identifiable publications, however, then the whole package is an omnibus, anthology, or collection, as appropriate.
  • Fixups. Sometimes an author will assemble material published separately into a novel. This will generally be classified as a novel. Some fixups are less coherent, consisting of largely independent stories, formed into a whole by the addition of linking material between the stories. In this case it is acceptable to call the book a collection or a novel; the decision should be discussed on the author's project page if there is any doubt.
  • "Split" novels. Occasionally a novel will be published as a single volume, and then republished (perhaps in another country) as two or more separate volumes. For example, Peter Hamilton's "Night's Dawn" trilogy was republished as six volumes in the US. The first book, "The Reality Dysfunction", was republished as "The Reality Dysfunction, Part One: Emergence", and "The Reality Dysfunction, Part Two: Expansion". The other two volumes were treated similarly. In these situations, the books should be treated as novels, even though they form only part of a work published as a novel. Also note that the original book is still treated as a novel; it does not become an OMNIBUS because it contains two works later republished as novels. Situations like this should be documented in the notes, and if necessary discussed on the bibliographic comments page for the publications.
• ISBN / Catalog # - A field for identification numbers. It should hold the ISBN if the publication has one, otherwise it should hold the publication’s catalog number if available. Note that prior to 2007 all ISBNs were 10 digit long while around 2007 they were expanded to 13 digit. Some books printed around 2007 specified both the 10 digit and the 13 digit version of the ISBN. The ISFDB software supports both formats, so if two forms of ISBN are present, you can enter either one.
• If there is no ISBN specified (they were introduced in the late 1960s and became widespread by the mid-1970s), then enter the catalog ID provided by the publisher and prefix it with # as in #UQ1064.
  • You may enter the ISBN with or without hyphens. If the ISBN is valid then ISFDB will display it with hyphens. One exception to the enter-as-stated rule is ISBNs delimited with spaces instead of hyphens. The ISBN should be entered using hyphens.
  • You may also see an ISBN of the form "0-586-06604-7-275"; the last three digits after the last hyphen indicate a price, and are not part of the ISBN; they should not be entered.
  • In some cases you will see a nine digit SBN, without a leading zero (for English language publications); in this case you can add the leading zero and enter that number.
  • If you entered a value that was not exactly as stated in the publication, then please add a comment about this in the Note field.
  • For magazines, it is allowable to enter the ISSN. For works that predate ISBNs, the book's catalog number/ID may be placed here. If the book had neither an ISBN nor a catalog number, the field should be left blank and a comment should be added to the notes field that a catalog number or other identification was not stated.
  • If a publication has more than one number, then enter the one that seems most reasonable in the ISBN field but then also add a comment to the notes field about the various numbers and where they are located in the publication. For example, a book may have both an ISBN and a catalog number. In this case the ISBN would go in the ISBN field and you would make a note, for example, that the ISBN is on the spine and catalog number is on the front cover.
• Price - The original cover price of this publication. Enter a single price, preceded with a currency symbol. For books published in both the USA and Canada, only the USA price should be noted. The original price of a 40 year old book isn't relevant in a purchasing sense anymore - the information is used to differentiate print editions, or to construct statistics on book pricing, which is difficult to do if two prices are present. Additional prices can (and usually should) be entreed in the notes field.

Prices under a dollar are listed as e.g. $0.25, for 25¢. Odd pricing formats can be ignored -- for example, occasionally a price of 20¢ will be printed as 20c; this can be entered as $0.20.

For books priced in other currencies, use an appropriate symbol;

• British currency should be indicated by a UK pound sign: "£", but if you can't generate one on your keyboard you can use an L: "L2.50" means two pounds fifty pence. Note that for Windows machines, the "Character Map" system accessory can be used to generate the pound sign as well as other characters or from the keyboard Windows users can hold down either ALT key, enter 0163 (zero 163) on the numeric keypad, and release the ALT key.
• In the 1970s, many British books cost lest than a pound and so would be priced in pence alone, e.g. 25p. These should be regularized like dollars and cents, i.e. 25p should be entered as £0.25 and 95p as £0.95.
• Older British books were priced in shillings, or shillings and pence, where 20 shillings equals one pound and 12 old pence equals one shilling. Shillings were indicated with a variety of suffixes, e.g. 3s, 3', 3", 3/ all mean 3 shillings. Any number after that is additional pence, usually 6 (half a shilling) but sometimes 3 or 9 (a quarter of a shilling or three-quarters of a shilling). A "-" indicates zero pence. The older the book, the more likely the pence prices are to reflect quarter shilling ranges than half-shillings. We always record the pence in ISFDB even if 0 (indicated by "-"), and use the "/" separator, i.e. 3/6 is used to mean three shillings and sixpence even if the book says 3s6 or 3'6; a price of three shillings exactly would be 3/- even if indicated on the book as 3s, 3" or 3' or even plain "Three shillings".
• Even older British paperback books, and magazines, may have been priced in pennies alone, indicated by a "d" suffix. E.g. 6d is six old pence, or half a shilling, 9d is nine old pence or three-quarters of a shilling. These are entered the same way as other pre-decimal prices but using the '-' for zero shillings, i.e. -/6 and -/9 in these examples.
• Note that between about 1968 and 1971, British books were usually printed with both pre-decimal and decimal prices. In these cases enter only the pre-decimal price, as the decimal price was not the currency used at the time of printing, but was printed in case the book remained for sale after the date of decimalization. For a couple of years afterward, the pre-decimal price might be shown in brackets after the decimal price for people still not used to decimal currency: these can be ignored or left in notes.
• British books are often priced for several other commonwealth countries such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, Malta, Gibraltar, South Africa, East Africa, Trinidad (W.I.), and countries with a significant English-speaking population such as Spain and the Republic of Ireland. These additional prices are usefully entered in notes. Some of these countries also have pre-decimal formats based on the British pound and post-decimal formats similar to Dollar prices, and some have changed yet again to € (Euro) prices. If in doubt, enter these in notes exactly as stated.
• Enter Canadian dollars with a leading C, for example, C$3.95.
• Enter Australian dollars with a leading A, for example, A$3.95.
• Pick an appropriate code for other currencies but also add a note explaining the currency as these books will be uncommon enough in ISFDB that most viewers will not recognize the code. For example you could use Y4800 or ¥4800 but would would add a note that the book price was stated in Japanese Yen.

If there is any ambiguity about the price, add an explanation in the Notes field. Overprinted and changed prices should use the most recent price; if the price change is via a label, however, the price change should be ignored. For example, British distribution of some American magazines included a label giving a British price; these are not the British reprint editions of those magazines, but simply American magazines with a label affixed.

• Artist - Cover artist. Enter the artist for the cover art if known. If not known, leave blank. If the artist is not credited, but a signature is visible on the artwork, this can be used; if you do this, clarify in the Notes where you found the information. If there is both a signature and a printed credit, follow the printed credit. If you believe you recognize the artist's style but can see no actual attribution, make a note in the Notes field but don't enter the artist's name. If you know from a secondary bibliographic source who the artist is, but there is no attribution, enter the artist's name and also add a comment to the Notes field explaining the source of the attribution. Note that entering this information will actually create a "COVERART" content record, behind the scenes, with a title of "Cover: " followed by the title of the publication.
• Add Artist. If the cover art is credited to more than one artist, this button will create a second artist field. As many artists as you wish can be added.
• Image URL - A URL to an image of the cover art. Note that for verified publications please select an image that matches the publication. If the only image that's available is close but not an exact copy of your publication then add a publication note explaining the differences. The ISFDB now hosts images, see How to upload images to the ISFDB wiki if you want to uplaod images to the ISFDB.

  The "Upload cover image" or "Upload new cover image" kink on a publication display can simplify the process of uploading an image to the ISFDB. but you must still edit the publication record and add the correct URL to this field.

  The URL here should always point directly to the image, not to any container page. Since the images are displayed directly in ISFDB pages, you should not use images from external sources without permission. Common image sources are:

  • Visco which covers only magazines and not books. The ISFDB has explicit permission to use Visco's images and has logic to add a credit to Visco.
  • Amazon - ISFDB has implicit permission to use Amazon's images as an Amazon associate. A good-quality medium-sized image available usually even for those books that generally only display a tiny thumbnail marred by "Search Inside!^TM" is images.amazon.com/images/P/0123456789.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg : i.e. the 10-digit ISBN without dashes. Check that the image is actually the correct one for your edition though: and beware if it's a publication still in print, as it seems Amazon use this for the CURRENT edition and may change it without warning. A more stable alternative seems to be to search for the ISBN on another Amazon site and find one without the "Search Inside" problems: e.g. Amazon.UK may have "Search Inside" whereas Amazon.com do not, or vice versa. Use the "See Larger Image" before choosing the picture.
    
    • Sometimes you will see an Amazon image that's framed by a large white border such as ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cXim2%2BwSL._AA240_.jpg. The "._AA240_" tells Amazon what size image (as a square) you want displayed. Amazon's logic seems to be that they will scale an image down to the size you want, but will not scale up. Instead it wraps the image in a white border. When you see a postage stamp size image on Amazon the best course seems to be to use the original (unscaled) image which you can get to by removing the "._SS500_" or "._AA240_" size indicator, for example, ec1.images-amazon.com/images/I/51cXim2%2BwSL.jpg , and let ISFDB scale it.
    • Sometimes a good-quality large image can be found from thumbnails and medium-size images marred by the "LOOK INSIDE!" (on small thumbnail) or "Click to LOOK INSIDE!" (on medium thumbnail) arrows. As with the scaling above, Amazon seems to encode scaling and adornment in a period-delimited section just before the trailing ".jpg" or ".gif". The URL for the large underlying image can be derived by removing everything starting with the penultimate period up to the final period. For example:

ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5142ES9VS1L._SL160_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-dp,TopRight,12,-18_SH30_OU01_AA115_.jpg (small thumb)

ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5142ES9VS1L._BO2,204,203,200_PIsitb-sticker-arrow-click,TopRight,35,-76_AA240_SH20_OU01_.jpg (medium thumb)

ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/5142ES9VS1L.jpg (unscaled, unmarred underlying image)

• • Fantastic Fiction - ISFDB has explicit permission to use Fantastic Fiction's images, but please first check to see if the image is available on Amazon and use that as Fantastic Fiction's bandwidth is limited.
  • Phil Stephensen-Payne's "Galactic Central" - ISFDB has explicit permission to use images hosted by "Galactic Central".
  • Fantascienza.com - ISFDB has explicit permission to use images hosted by Fantascienza.com. To find the URL of a publication, select 'titolo' (title) in the search box on the home page and type the title (in Italian or English), then follow the links. The format is: www.fantascienza.com/catalogo/cov/DD/DDddd.jpg, where "DD" are the first two characters of the five characters code DDddd in square bracket.
  • icshi We are now permitted to link directly to the covers: if you do so, please at least credit 'Icshi" in the notes, and an occasional hyperlink or two back to the site would be appreciated.
  • vanvogt Japanese site, but English text with lots of pretty covers and artist info. Yutaka, the sitemaster says "You may link my pictures to anywhere you like, but I'll be glad if you would let me know where you use them" - so drop him an email if you need to use one of them on the ISFDB.
  • Magnus' van Vogt site Icelandic site with good selection of covers Magnus is very generous too: "Hi. Feel free to link however you want, I have free bandwidth where I'm hosting the images."
  • Bookscans ("Graphically illustrating the evolution of vintage American paperbacks - 1939 through 1969") "The ISFDB hereby has permission to link to any page or picture on the BookScans web site."
  • Ace image library "I give you permission to use whatever images that you need from the ACE IMAGE LIBRARY for the ISFDB and appreciate the credit notation for this usage. I should note that a couple of the AIL images (primarily for original cover art or prelliminary drawings as well as a couple of the inserts or daybills for the Man From U.N.C.L.E movies) have been permitted to the AIL from other sources. These are noted on the appropriate AIL page and if you use these you may wish to credit them as "Original art / movie art for ........ . Permission for use given to AIL."
  • Mondourania Italian language site. Has images of covers from many Italian SF publications. Automatically credited based on ImageURL domain.
  • The Trash Collector Small images, but wide variety. Scott Stine, owner, says "Feel free to link to the pictures on my website. [...] Thanks for writing and asking permission, and good luck on your worthy endeavor."
  • Collectors Showcase This is a great source for images of pulps, digests and early hardcover editions, and not just French publications.
• Before using a different source, ask for permission, and if you get it, post a copy on the wiki so that other editors may use the same source. More information about this, and a sample letter requesting permission, can be found at ISFDB:Image linking permissions.
• Note - A note specific to this particular publication. These notes should be permanent comments that reflect something indisputable about a Publication, e.g. a mis-spelled title on the contents page.
  • Temporary comments'. Temporary comments that support the bibliographic effort but will be eventually deleted (once all issues are resolved), belong in the "Bibliographic Comments" field in the Wiki; e.g. information about incorrect data that is in the process of being corrected.
  • Miscellaneous data. Miscellaneous additional bibliographic information can be recorded here, such as the volume/issue information for a magazine.
  • Printings. Information about which printing is being recorded should be recorded here: commonly this is done as "Stated third printing of 1970 Signet edition", to indicate not only which printing it is, but that the book explicitly states this (as opposed to a deduction made from bibliographic sources). If the information on printing number and date is derived from a number line, you can mention that: "Stated 35th printing (per number line) of 1972 Bantam edition". If there is no printing information beyond the edition date, and no specific "first printing" statement, it is likely that this is a first printing, and you can put "Appears to be first printing of 1974 Puffin edition."
  • Sources. You do not need to record the source of data if it is taken from one of the standard bibliographic sources used in verification. For example, if the month of publication is drawn from the Locus index, while the book only shows the year, you do not need to say "Date per Locus1"; the verification flag showing that Locus1 has been consulted provides this information. Other sources used to update the record should be mentioned; though complex issues may be discussed on the author's wiki page or the publication comments wiki page.
  • Errors in sources. If you find an error in a source, make a note here -- e.g. "Locus1 incorrectly gives page count as 506".

Once you're done entering the data, check it over, and then press the "Submit Data" button. This will put your data into the "submission queue". It won't immediately update the ISFDB. The submission queue is managed by the ISFDB moderators, who periodically look at the submissions and decided whether to approve or reject them. If you check back after a while you'll find you submission has been dealt with, and, most likely, approved. If you now search for your novel's title, you should see your book's data is now part of the ISFDB.