THE Group for Authors! discussion

Hi, I am a newbie. Having trouble. Would appreciate advice/help, please?
I have an author page (with 3 very old books of mine on it) but cannot get my new (out today) book Lethal Intent onto it. Lethal Intent is out in the goodreads ozone in 3 formats (today it's being re-issued as a True Crime Classic).
I printed out and read all the advice to Author notes. I also acquired librarian status so I could combine the various editions of Lethal Intent. I believe I have done that, however, the combined book profile still is not on my home page.
I followed the instruction "to add a book, search for it," but when you find the book in the search results, what next? I still have not been able to get it onto the page from being a search result and there is no instruction that I can see.
I saw "add manually" and another option and tried those, but that seems to have just added Lethal Intent to my own "favourite reads" list and still not to my author page.
I hope I don't have a "duh" moment coming on. I was hesitant to ask for help but I give up! Any instructions would be so appreciated. Many thanks and happy to be here!
Sue Russell

Hi, Sue! Authors with common names have this a lot. The way we separate (disambiguate) such authors is by adding extra spaces between first and last name. Doesn't show up anywhere but the edit screens, but the database recognizes you and Sue-space-space-Russell as two different people. I moved Lethal Intent over to you.

Should this be an issue again, the best place to ask for book issue help is the Librarians Group.

Hi Rivka! You are a star. You're right, it is a common old name - but it's been my byline for too long to change it now :) Just to show you how disoriented I am, I thought I was in the Librarians group. I promise to do better. I really appreciate you moving it over for me. Phew!

It's not THAT common. There are 2 or 3, right?

We have some others with over 10 with the same name!

Wow! That must be really rough. Well, there is a Sue Russell who writes cookery books and that is never going to be me. (I was *given* a Jello cookbook for Christmas.) But there are two or three, yes.
Thanks again, Rivka, for the help!

Sue wrote: "Hi, I am a newbie. Having trouble. Would appreciate advice/help, please?
I have an author page (with 3 very old books of mine on it) but cannot get my new (out today) book Lethal Intent onto it. L..."

Hi Sue,
Welcome to GR.
Don't worry, I've had problems too, and only today discovered they had been fixed.
First, remember there is about a 3 day day wait till your author profile and your personal profile are merged. You will know that when the words "goodreads author profile" appears beside your name in your profile box at the top of the page.
Second, you must ensure your personal name is identical to your author name. If not the GR computer will recognise 2 individuals.
In my instance - and this may be of interest to others - I finally got around the problem - of using a first name in my personal profile and initials as my author name - by mentioning both, separated by a space / space, i.e., Justin South / J.J.South. Today, voila! my profile is finally correct. I can use both names and arrive at the same GR and author profile.
Third, while enduring the same as you, sometimes I had Librarian status, (which supposedly indicates you have an author page/status, though the system does not confirm same), while at other times I didn't. Just persevere and send your query to GR Support at goodreads [email protected]

Hope this helps you.
kindly
Justin

Thanks for the welcome Justin! Glad I am not alone. These are all good tips and pieces of intelligence. I have a photo that hasn't shown up yet and this may well explain it. Thanks too for the support address, did not know about that. It is very nice to be here and I appreciate you taking the time to write.

Interesting about your name merge. Clearly, a lot to learn.

Good luck with all,

Thanks,
Sue

Sue wrote: "Thanks again, Rivka, for the help!"

Any time. :)


Justin, actually, Librarian status and Author status are quite different (although one can have both). Authors do sometimes get confused about which they are requesting, though.