Help:How to record a variant title
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This is a how-to trying to explain step by step how creating a variant works. For the detailed rules regarding variants, see Help:Screen:AddVariant.
Two Existing Entries
It often happens that the ISFDB lists a single work under two different titles, or under the same title but with different versions of the author's name. For example, Andre Norton's "Sargasso of Space" was originally published under the pseudonym "Andrew North". Another example, showing a difference in title, would be Arthur C. Clarke's "The Longest Science Fiction Story Ever Told", which was originally published under the title "A Recursion in Metastories". Each of these is regarded by the ISFDB as a "variant title", and should be recorded as such.
- First, check that what you are looking at really is a variant title. Are the titles identical? Is the author's name spelled identically on both publications? If so, you just need to merge the titles, as they are not variants at all, but duplicates. See How to merge titles for help on how to merge them.
- Next, make sure that the variation is real. For example, you might notice that the original Ballantine paperback of "Night's Black Agents" is listed as being by "Fritz Lieber", which is a mis-spelling of "Fritz Leiber". Is this really how the book was published? Or is it a typographical error on the part of the person entering the data? If it's the latter, you don't want to record it as a variant title. If it's the former--an error or variation printed in the book--then the publication should have a note against it saying why the spelling is different. There may be Sources of Bibliographic Information that you can check which will tell you about misprints and pseudonyms and retitlings.
- You should also make sure that the variation in titles or author's name is not just because one of them is entered in a non-standard way. The ISFDB doesn't record minor differences in capitalization or punctuation, so if one story is entered as "Code Blue - Emergency!" and the other as "Code Blue--Emergency!", these are not really variants. Similarly, "Invasion From Mars" and "Invasion from Mars" are the same. The ISFDB does have rules for how to regularize a title; the right thing to do here is to merge the two titles, making sure to select the version of the title that is correctly capitalized and punctuated.
- Once you know that the two titles are really variants, make sure they're not already recorded that way. For example, Isaac Asimov's "Foundation and Empire" was published by Ace under the title "The Man Who Upset the Universe". If you do a title search for "Man Who Upset" you'll see this appear in the results. Click on the title, and the title record will tell you that this title is a "Variant Title of Foundation and Empire". Clicking that title shows "The Man Who Upset the Universe" as a variant title. So the work has already been done in this case.
- If your two titles have not yet been linked as variants, you now have to decide which one is going to be the parent, and which one is the variant. The parent title is referred to as the "canonical title" of the work. For the Asimov example, "Foundation and Empire" is clearly the canonical title: not only is it much better known under that title than as "The Man Who Upset the Universe", but the first book publication was as "Foundation and Empire". It won't always be clear which is the canonical title, but it's a choice that can be reversed later, so it's not absolutely critical to get right the first time. When in doubt, pick the title used on the first published version of the story; in unclear and complicated cases, post a question on ISFDB:Help desk. If the titles match, but there is an alternate author name on one of them, use the one that is the canonical author name.
- Now that you know which title is the canonical one, you need to find the title ID. Display the title record for the version with the canonical title. The title ID is displayed in the top right corner where it says "Title Record # XXXXXXX".
- Display the other title -- the non-canonical one, or the one that's going to be the variant as "The Man Who Upset the Universe" was the child in the example above. Click on the navigation bar link that says: "Make This Title a Variant".
- Under the prompt "If the parent title already exists, enter the record number of the title below" there is a field labeled "Parent #". Enter the parent title ID in this field, and click "Link to Existing Parent".
- Once you have submitted the data, it will be reviewed by a moderator. Once approved, you'll see that the two titles are linked together.
A Single Entry Under an Alternate Name
Sometimes the only entry (or all the entries) for a title are under a version of the author's name that is not the canonical name. To make such titles show up on the canonical author page:
- display the title record (bibliography).
- Then click "Make This Title a Variant".
- On the resulting "Make Variant Title" screen, scroll to the section labeled "Option 2".
- Change the "Author" field to the canonical author name. Copy the name from the canonical author page if there is any chance of a spelling or typing error. If the work has joint authors, be sure each is shown in the canonical form. Edit or add author names as needed.
- If the title is not the canonical title, edit the title field to the canonical title.
- Click the "Create New Parent Title" button.
Once a moderator has approved the edit, the work will display on the proper canonical author page.