Goodreads Librarians Group discussion

I'm currently listening to a serialised audiobook by Alexander McCall Smith. Just as Dickens did in his day McCall Smith is releasing a new chapter of his book every week day for a period of 20 weeks on the Telegraph UK's website. It's available in writing at the paper's website too.

I tried to find some other examples of this kind of book on Good Reads but couldn't find anything similar. So I've added the book Corduroy Mansions with as many details as I can.

I chose 'serialised digital download' as my binding format but am open to suggestions on that issue...or any other way of improving the listing of this book. I think eventually the book will be released as a written book and normal audio book but at the moment it's only available in the serialised forma.

What do you think...is this eligible for inclusion on Good Reads and should I make any changes to the information about the book?

The only thing you might do is add a note in the description field outlining what you explained here. If I came across it as is, I personally would leave it alone, and I think most other librarians would too, but more information and explanations never hurt. The lack of an isbn tends to stir up the urge to delete, but an explanation should stop us in our tracks! :-)

I don't know of a better way to do this. I think you addressed the issue as well as anyone could.

Someone else may have more to add though...

The lack of an ISBN doesn't really stir up an urge to delete. If the date is 2008 or 2007 and there's no other information to describe the book other than author and title, and there are other editions of the book with information, then I'll delete. Older books don't have ISBNs and there are many reasons books might lack them.

My only question would be whether the serialized book would get excluded under the magazine/comic book clause; I bring that up to preemptively argue that it shouldn't be excluded because it's being explicitly presented as chapters of a single book which are not meant to stand alone, and the record is not for the chapters but for the entire book.

Cait, Well if it's for the entire book, then wouldn't members wait to rate and review it until they're read all the segments?

Oh, not necessarily -- I know I often form opinions about books partway through and revise as needed, although the new currently-reading status updates may replace the use of reviews for this....

@JG - thanks I will add some more information to the book description to make it clear what type of format I'm talking about

@Lisa - I might wait until the end to do my review but I don't want to wait until the end to add it to my list of books (I've got it on my currently reading shelf). As for the lack of an ISBN I guess the book will one day be published in the traditional sense and be issued with an ISBN and in that case I will consider switching to a different edition (assuming the content is the same as what I listened to).

I can only think that there are likely to be more examples of this type of non-traditional publishing. I've listened to quite a few podcast novels and only one that I know of has ended up being published in the traditional sense. Are the others ineligible for inclusion on Good Reads? I haven't added any of them to my shelves yet but I've been thinking about it because GR has become the place where I keep a record of what I read (and listen to). I decided to try the McCall Smith book first because he is a well established author of traditional books and people might be more accepting but in my mind the other books (e.g. J C Hutchins' 7th Son trilogy, Scott Sigler's Ancestor, Earthcore, The Rookie etc) are equally valid 'books' even though they were released in serialised podcast format. I'll continue to ponder the question.

Well once all the pieces are out, is it going to get published as one whole thing?

To me, these are the same things as old serialized versions of stories found in 'Astounding Science Fiction' or 'Readers Digest' or something like that and we dont allow those...

I have a question about combining editions: I know that audiobooks are combined with the print editions, which makes sense to me. However, sometimes there are audio "dramatizations" of books, which are performed by a cast, and leave out a lot of text. I think this sort of thing should be separated out from the other editions, but I just wanted to make sure that you folks concurred before I made a change.

Kerry, I'd call those adaptions of the original and separate them, I think.