Forgotten Realms Wiki:Help-Writing an article about a book

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Articles about books can be about sourcebooks or novels, or occasionally about book-like publications such as the Monstrous Compendium Volume Two (presented as a set of binder pages to add to a previously issued ring binder). These articles should not be used for magazines, since there is no need to create a separate article for each magazine issue, and there already exist articles for Dungeon magazine and Dragon magazine.

Template[]

Use the {{Book}} template to begin the article. Go to the template's page and simply copy the text in the usage box. You can then paste this into your article and fill in the blanks. Fill in as much information as you can. The template will know which fields you have left blank and these will not be displayed. You can refer to the template's page for extra help on the purpose of each field.

Synopsis[]

Follow the template with the book's synopsis, encompassing it using the {{Quote}} template. For example:

{{Quote|''Fearsome and formidable foes lurk within. Encounter a horde of monsters armed and ready to battle your boldest heroes or fight alongside them. The fully illustrated pages of this book are overrun with all the creatures, statistics, spells, and strategies you need to challenge the heroic characters of any ''Dungeons & Dragons'' roleplaying game.''}}

This should be the official synopsis for the publication, usually found on its back cover, and not something you have written yourself.

Summary[]

A brief summary of the events of the book, if appropriate. It might be that the synopsis has dealt adequately with the plot, but if not, you can write some of your own text here to describe the book. It need not be at great length.

Other text[]

If there is anything further to be said about the book in question, it can be presented below the synopsis normally. This might include notable information, such as any reissue details, number of copies sold, whether this is the author's first publication, or anything else that might enhance the article. Remember to provide references where necessary.

Editions[]

If this book has more than one edition (most novels do), you should use the {{Editions}} template to create a table of them, for easy reference.

Discovering a book's editions[]

There are many ways to find all of the editions for a specific book, but a working method is presented here.

Visit The ISBN database and search for the title of the book. This should bring up a list of editions. For each edition, check that it is valid and does not refer to a non-Realms book with the same title.
Use the ISBN-10 at Amazon.com to view the product information for each edition. For example, http://www.amazon.com/dp/0786904895
If a book is distributed as part of a set, like the Legacy of the Drow Gift Set, there will usually be just one ISBN for the set itself, but you can list the ISBN as though it belonged to the individual book in the set, and it will be apparent to the reader. For example, ISBN 0786930012 refers to Legacy of the Drow Gift Set, but you can use this ISBN (and the corresponding ISBN-13) as an edition of each of the books The Legacy, Starless Night, Siege of Darkness and Passage to Dawn.

Standard date format[]

In order to make the date column sortable via the controls at the top of the table, and to avoid confusion between American and non-American order dates, list the dates in this table in the format 2008-12-29, where this represents the 29th December 2008.

Example[]

Here is an example of the {{Editions}} template from the Passage to Dawn article:

{{Editions|
{{Edition
| edition   = Hardcover
| pages     = 313
| isbn10    = 0-7869-0489-5
| isbn13    = 978-0786904891
| publisher = [[TSR, Inc.]]
| published = 1996-08-06
}}
{{Edition
| edition   = Hardcover
| pages     = unknown
| isbn10    = 0-7869-0834-3
| isbn13    = 978-0786908349
| publisher = [[TSR, Inc.]]
| published = 1996-09
}}
{{Edition
| edition   = Paperback
| pages     = 347
| isbn10    = 0-7869-0750-9
| isbn13    = 978-0786907502
| publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]]
| published = 1997-08-01
}}
{{Edition
| edition   = Paperback (Legacy of the Drow Gift Set)
| pages     = unknown
| isbn10    = 0-7869-0750-9
| isbn13    = 978-0786907502
| publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]]
| published = 2003-09-01
}}
{{Edition
| edition   = Hardcover (The Legend of Drizzt collection)
| pages     = 352
| isbn10    = 0-7869-4257-6
| isbn13    = 978-0786942572
| publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]]
| published = 2007-03-13
}}
{{Edition
| edition   = Mass Market Paperback (The Legend of Drizzt collection)
| pages     = 352
| isbn10    = 0-7869-4911-2
| isbn13    = 978-0786949113
| publisher = [[Wizards of the Coast]]
| published = 2008-08-05
}}
}}

This will produce:

Edition	Pages	ISBN-10	ISBN-13	Publisher	Published
Hardcover	313	0-7869-0489-5	978-0786904891	TSR, Inc.	1996-08-06
Hardcover	unknown	0-7869-0834-3	978-0786908349	TSR, Inc.	1996-09
Paperback	347	0-7869-0750-9	978-0786907502	Wizards of the Coast	1997-08-01
Paperback (Legacy of the Drow Gift Set)	unknown	0-7869-0750-9	978-0786907502	Wizards of the Coast	2003-09-01
Hardcover (The Legend of Drizzt collection)	352	0-7869-4257-6	978-0786942572	Wizards of the Coast	2007-03-13
Mass Market Paperback (The Legend of Drizzt collection)	352	0-7869-4911-2	978-0786949113	Wizards of the Coast	2008-08-05

Covers[]

Upload an image depicting the cover of each of the editions of the book. If there is just one edition, just add the image to the {{Book}} template. If there is more than one edition, create a section entitled “Covers” and use the <gallery> tag to create a gallery.

Finding book covers[]

It is often easiest to use the cover images located on Amazon.com, but there are other sources. You can get a product image from Amazon.com if you know its ISBN-10. The URL will be http://images.amazon.com/images/P/ISBN.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg, where ISBN is the 10-digit ISBN with no dashes. For example, the Legacy of the Drow Gift Set is depicted at http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0786930012.01.LZZZZZZZ.jpg. Sometimes an image is fuzzy or pixellated at its large size, so you can replace the LZZZZZZZ with MZZZZZZZ to get a slightly smaller one.

Uploading book covers[]

In the description for the image, state which book it is from, including the edition and the author. If you know the cover's artist, credit him or her. Also give the source of the image, which is the full URL to it. Then use the {{Promotional}} template, and set the licensing on the image to be fair use. If you know who the cover artist is, put it in the appropriate category. For example:

Cover of the ''[[Passage to Dawn]]'' reissue by [[R.A. Salvatore]]. From the [[Legend of Drizzt]] collection. Art by [[Todd Lockwood]]. Source: http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0786942576.01.LZZZZZZZjpg

{{Promotional}}

[[Category:Images by Todd Lockwood]]

Creating the gallery[]

To use the gallery, once you have uploaded all the images, simply sandwich the image calls, on individual lines, between the gallery tags, like this:

<gallery>
Image:Passage to dawn hardcover.jpg|August 1996 hardcover edition.
Image:Passage to dawn hardcover sep96.jpg|September 1996 hardcover edition.
Image:Passage to Dawn.jpg|1997 paperback edition. Art by [[Robh Ruppel]].
Image:Legacy of the drow gift set.jpg|[[Legacy of the Drow Gift Set]], 2003, in which an edition of ''Passage of Dawn'' is contained.
Image:Passage to Dawn2.jpg|2007 hardcover edition from the [[Legend of Drizzt]] collection. Art by [[Todd Lockwood]].
Image:Passage to Dawn2.jpg|2008 mass market paperback edition from the [[Legend of Drizzt]] collection. Art by [[Todd Lockwood]].
</gallery>

Categorization[]

Type of book[]

Add a category according to the type of book this is. For example:

Sourcebooks

Adventures

Others

Category:Novels

Author[]

Also, add a category for works by each author, for example:

If the category does not exist, check for alternate spellings of the author's name. For example, Steven E. Schend has been credited as Steven Schend in the past, but those works where he is credited as Steven Schend should still be placed in Category:Works by Steven E. Schend because otherwise there will exist two categories for the same person. As a rule of thumb, the author's name in the category title should be the same spelling as used in the article about that author. If there is no article about that author, use the most common spelling.

Date[]

Add a category for the year of publication. For books with multiple editions, add one for each year during which an edition was published. If two editions were published in the same year, just add the category once. Thus for a novel published in April 1995, you should put it in Category:Published in 1995.

Citation templates[]

In order to complete the process, please create a citation template for each edition of the book. See Help:Creating book citation templates for more information.