Template:PublicationFields:Author

• Author - The name of the author of the publication. The name should be entered exactly as it is actually given on the publication's title page. This includes pseudonyms, abbreviated names ("I. Asimov" instead of "Isaac Asimov", "Robert Heinlein" instead of "Robert A. Heinlein"), etc. Any variation of the author credit appearing in other parts of the publication (e.g. the cover or spine of the book) should be noted.
  • Editors, authors, translators, etc. If the publication is explicitly credited to an author (or authors) on its title page, use that name (or names). If it is an ANTHOLOGY, multi-author OMNIBUS, or multi-author work of NONFICTION, credit the editor as the "author" of the publication. For MAGAZINEs and FANZINEs, credit the issue editor as the "author" of the publication. (Note that for non-genre MAGAZINEs/FANZINEs, "Editors of PERIODICAL NAME" may be used instead of some or all editor names if they are unknown or unclear or not of genre interest -- see Help:Entering non-genre periodicals for details.) If the book is a COLLECTION or a single-author OMNIBUS, but also credits an editor, that credit can only be noted in the Note fields of the publication record and the title record. A multi-author OMNIBUS that has no editor credit (and no secondary source for the editor credit) should credit the authors of the contained fiction. (It is suggested that when there are five or more authors, that the editor should be entered as "uncredited".) There is currently no support in the ISFDB for translators or other non-author roles; this information should just be entered into the Note field (using the {{tr|translator name}} template).
  • 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". 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". The intent is that the ISFDB record should reflect what is stated in the publication. This applies to editorship of anthologies that are not credited. If there is a publicly available source which identifies the publication's author/editor, the publication's main title record will be later turned into a variant title using the author/editor's canonical name.
  • 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 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.
  • Spaces in Names: Spaces within a name should be regularized. If a name differs from a canonical name or existing alternate name only by the lack of, or addition of, blank spaces, it should be entered as the existing name or alternate name. For example, a book credited to "Ursula LeGuin", "Lester DelRey", or "A. E. VanVogt" should be listed by including the missing space, e.g. "Lester del Rey". Conversely, if a book were credited to "John De Chancie", the extra space should be removed, and the book credited to "John DeChancie". One effect of this rule is to avoid subjective judgements when there appears to be a "partial space" in a name.
  • Alternate Names. If you know that a particular author's name is an alternate name, enter that alternate name rather than changing it to the canonical name. If the title page shows both an original and a subsequent name, use the original name. For example, Isaac Asimov's "Lucky Starr" books were originally published under the pseudonym of Paul French, but later reprints were given both names: "by Isaac Asimov, writing as Paul French". In these cases you should still enter Paul French as the author and record the dual credit in the notes. If the cover shows both names but the title page shows only one name, use the name from the title page -- no matter which it is -- and record the discrepancy with the cover credit in the notes. When a book is known to be ghost-written, this should be treated as an alternate name; the ghost-writer will eventually show up as having an alternate name of the well-known author, but that data is not entered via this field.
  • Non-English characters. Non-English characters, including accented Latin characters and all other Unicode characters, should be entered exactly as they appear in the publication. See the ISFDB FAQ for more information on accented characters.
  • Collaborations. If a work has multiple authors, it doesn't matter in which order you enter them. The ISFDB does not record author order regardless of how the authors are entered.
  • Writers "with" other writers. In some cases a writer is credited as writing a story "with" another author. If both names appear on the title page, both names should be recorded in the ISFDB. Although the "with" convention can indicate that the co-authors' contributions were not equal (often the more famous author did little more than lend their name to a project which was written almost entirely by the lesser known author), the "Author" field treats them as regular co-authors. A note can be added to the record explaining how the work is credited and giving additional information about the nature of the collaboration if publicly available.
  • 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 alternate 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."; "Frederick C. Durant, III"; and so on.
  • Duplicate Names. See Help:How to enter duplicate record names