Why Author Identifiers Matter

There's more than one Adam Zuckerman on the internet. I'd like my book attached to me.

That's the whole problem author identifiers solve. ISNI, VIAF, name authority records, and the retailer and reader profiles are the records that tell catalogs, stores, and search engines which author you are. Each one has a job, an owner, and a way to check it. This guide is for any author, traditionally published, hybrid, or self-published, and it explains what each record is, why it matters, who controls it, and how to check or correct what it says. The Author identifiers directory has a page for every one of them.

The problem these records solve

Nobody in publishing, bookselling, or libraries knows you. They know a string of letters that appears on a cover, in a metadata feed, and in a catalog record, and they have to decide whether that string is the same person every time it shows up.

That decision is made by software, thousands of times a day, and it's made badly whenever the inputs disagree. If your name appears with a middle initial on one book and without it on another, a library catalog can file the two under different people. If a retailer's data lists a same-name author's books beside yours, an unclaimed author page will happily show them as yours. If a search engine can't find one reliable source that says who you are, it guesses.

Author identifiers are how the systems stop guessing. Each one is a record, kept by a different organization, that says "this name, this person, these books." When they agree with each other, your books travel together: the catalog files them under one heading, the retailer page lists them all, the search result shows the right author beside the right title. When they don't, your work is split into pieces that don't know about each other, and you find out months later, from a reader who couldn't find your second book.

None of this is difficult. It's just spread across systems that never talk to each other, which is why most authors never hear about it until something's wrong. I didn't.

Start with the one decision everything depends on

Before any record exists, decide the exact form of your name you'll publish under: with or without a middle initial, a suffix, a hyphen, a pen name. Then use it identically everywhere. Every identifier below is built on that string, and a name that varies across records is the single most common reason an author's books end up split.

I learned the same lesson from my title rather than my name. No Loose Ends: The Smart & Slightly Morbid Guide to Estate Planning & End-of-Life Tasks has been rewritten by well-meaning people and systems a dozen ways, with the ampersands spelled out, the hyphens dropped, the subtitle gone. A name has the same problem, and the fix is the same: pick one form, write it down, and check it everywhere.

If you've published before under a slightly different form, decide now whether to match it or deliberately separate the two. Write the decision down. The checklist's first item, Decide the name you publish under, is that decision.

The records, in the order you'll meet them

The pages you can claim today

Amazon Author Central. This free account lets you manage your Amazon author page, including the photo, biography, and books attached to your name. Nobody claims it for you. Once at least one book has a live listing or preorder, claim the page and check every format.

A verified account may also let you update descriptions and editorial reviews, monitor customer reviews and Sales Rank, and see BookScan's estimate of participating U.S. print sales. That report is useful between royalty statements, but it isn't a complete sales total.

Goodreads Author Program. Goodreads builds author profiles automatically from book data, and the free program lets the real author claim the profile. Automatic profiles are often wrong: a missing title, a same-name author's book, an empty bio. The claim is made from the desktop site once a book of yours is in the database. Merging a stranger's books out of your profile is done by volunteer Goodreads librarians, not from the profile itself.

BookBub Author Profile. Optional, and most useful in the genres BookBub's readers concentrate in. Claiming it is free through a Partners account and lets you set the photo, bio, and book information readers see.

Your website. The one web address you own, and the address every other record can point to. Retailers, libraries, search engines, and Wikidata all have a field for it. Without one, the top result for your name is whatever a third party built, and you can't correct it. I built one page on my own site with everything about the book on it and have been pointing librarians, podcasters, and award organizers to it ever since.

LinkedIn profile. For nonfiction, business, professional, and academic books, the people who book speakers and buy in bulk look here first. The name, photo, and book should match everything else; the Publications section should list the book with a link.

The numbers that identify you

ISNI (International Standard Name Identifier). A sixteen-digit number that stands for you in library, retailer, and royalty databases, so those systems can agree that the same person wrote all your books even when the name is common. Libraries and publishers often create one without the author asking, so search the free public database first: a duplicate is harder to clean up than a missing number. If there's none, only an official registration agency can assign one; a publisher's or national library's route is often free. The ISNI record explains the search and the request.

Library of Congress name authority record. The record that fixes one authorized form of your name for library catalogs and keeps you apart from writers with similar names. Nobody outside a library can create or edit it; a cataloger makes it when a library catalogs one of your books. What you can do is check it, and if it's wrong or merged with someone else, ask your publisher's library-facing staff, or a cataloging library, to fix the source.

VIAF (Virtual International Authority File). A free service that gathers the official name lists national libraries use and groups the entries that look like one person. There's nothing to claim or edit. A first-time author will find nothing until a library has cataloged the book; search a few months after publication, and take any error to a librarian.

Wikidata. The free public database behind Wikipedia, and one place all of the above can sit side by side. A well-sourced Wikidata item can give search engines and linked-data services another public source for connecting an author, a book, and their identifiers. It does not guarantee a knowledge panel or better ranking. Search first, and create or expand an item only when it meets Wikidata's current notability rules and reliable public sources support the statements. If you're editing information about yourself or a client, disclose the connection, keep the entry nonpromotional, and expect community review. An ISBN by itself does not guarantee that every author or book should have an item. See Wikidata in the glossary.

Who controls what

The short version: you control the pages, libraries control the library records, and the numbers sit in between.

That table is why the checklist opens with the pages: they're the ones you can finish alone, today, without a publisher or a publication date. The library records come later and mostly come to you.

How to check them

Pick a quiet hour after the book has a listing, and again a few months after publication.

1. Search your name on Amazon and Goodreads. Are all your books there, and only yours? Is the photo the same one you use everywhere?
2. Search your name at isni.org (opens in a new tab). Is there one record, and is it you? Two records, or one that mixes you with a namesake, is a correction to request.
3. Search your name at id.loc.gov (opens in a new tab). Nothing yet is normal before a library catalogs the book. A record that merges you with another writer is worth a note to your publisher.
4. Search your name at viaf.org (opens in a new tab), months after publication. Look at which library files appear and whether the works listed are all yours.
5. Search your name on Wikidata. If an item exists, check its description and identifiers. If not, read the current notability policy before creating one, and create it only if reliable public sources support the statements.
6. Search your name on Google in a private window. What comes first? Is it a page you control?

Record every number you find in one place. The Author identifiers directory has a field for each, and a signed-in Author Profile keeps them beside your book's other records.

What to do this week

• Decide the form of your name, and write it down.
• Claim your Amazon author page and your Goodreads profile if a book of yours is listed.
• Put your website address, in one consistent form, in every profile that asks for it.
• Search ISNI once. Note the number if it's yours; note the problem if there are two.
• Leave the Library of Congress and VIAF for after publication, and put a reminder in your Author Profile.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need all of these?

No. Every author benefits from the pages (Amazon, Goodreads, a website) and from one ISNI search. The library records arrive on their own once a library catalogs the book, and Wikidata is optional until you have an identifier to cite.

Can my publisher do this for me?

Some of it. A traditional publisher enters your name in the metadata feed, may contribute author data to ISNI, and has library-facing staff who can route a catalog correction. The pages are yours to claim; a publisher can't claim Amazon Author Central or Goodreads for you.

What if someone else has my name?

That's exactly what these records are for. An ISNI separates you by number, a library authority record separates you by an authorized form of the name (often with a birth year), and a claimed Amazon or Goodreads page shows only your books. Say so plainly on your website's bio page; catalogers and journalists will thank you. I speak from experience.

Is a Wikidata entry the same as a Wikipedia article?

No. Wikidata is a database of facts with references; Wikipedia is an encyclopedia with its own rules about who gets an article. An entry on one doesn't create the other. Don't write a Wikipedia article about yourself; Wikipedia's rules discourage it.

How often should I check?

Once when the first listing appears, once a few months after publication, and once a year after that. In an Author Profile, each identifier record carries a status so you can see at a glance which ones you've confirmed.

Keep one clean record

Use the free Author identifiers directory and the Your Author Identity checklist, or create a free Author Profile and add your book, one payment, to keep the work in one place.

Sources

• ISNI: the International Standard Name Identifier (opens in a new tab)
• VIAF: the Virtual International Authority File (opens in a new tab)
• Library of Congress Name Authority File (opens in a new tab)
• Wikidata (opens in a new tab)
• Amazon Author Central (opens in a new tab)
• Goodreads Author Program (opens in a new tab)
• BookBub Partners (opens in a new tab)