Distinguishing between digital editions

[jwillikers]

I’ve been wondering whether or not to distinguish between digital editions, and if so, when to do so. This comes up in two different situations for me, eBooks and digital audiobooks, i.e. eAudiobooks.

For eBooks, should an edition be added for each format, i.e. PDF, EPUBv2, EPUBv3, MOBI, CBZ? I kind of hope not, but figured its worth asking. There’s also situations where a digitial edition may come from something like Humble Bundle, and, particularly for comics, it’s difficult to determine if the EPUB would be the same as one provided from an online storefront in such a situation.

For eAudiobooks, I’ve kind of been lumping everything together in a single edition. I also add the eAudiobooks to MB, where I create multiple releases for the same book. Amazon releases have to be distinguished from Libro.fm releases, and Libro.fm releases are further multiplied into a release for the mp3s and a release for the m4b file provided. Amazon releases are associated with an ASIN instead of an ISBN like the releases from Libro.fm, which we decided was the proper course in Audiobooks with one track but multiple chapters. So, I’ve been creating an individual edition in BB that maps to all of the releases in MB, and including this edition in the same edition group as any print or digital books. This lead me to mirroring release group series in MB with edition series in BB to track the audiobook versions of a work. With this approach, edition groups in BB don’t exactly match release groups in MB, where the groups only include audiobooks and the artist credit is generally shared among all of the releases.

With all of that, it’s difficult for me to determine the best approach. My current approach has a lot of problems using edition series to track audiobooks in a series, as any alternative edition of the audiobook, like a CD format, doesn’t fit nicely into the series. Using an edition group for audiobooks is more 1:1 with MB and solves the series problem, but I’ve been under the impression that eBooks, print books, and audiobooks should all be in the same edition group. Should eAudiobook releases from Audible be associated with an ASIN and separate from others which use an ISBN? Should there be an edition for the mp3s from Libro.fm and another edition for the m4b from Libro.fm or should they be part of the same edition? Thoughts?

[UltimateRiff]

for file formats, I don’t imagine we would create a new edition for each format (provided the content is the same, of course). MusicBrainz currently does this for digital releases of music (MP3, FLAC, WAV, etc.), tho there are some cases where MusicBrainz does split digital releases, like different cover art, UPCs, and more. I don’t know if there’s a standard for BookBrainz yet tho…

tl;dr, I’m all for not splitting on only file format

@jwillikers

This lead me to mirroring release group series in MB with edition series in BB to track the audiobook versions of a work. With this approach, edition groups in BB don’t exactly match release groups in MB, where the groups only include audiobooks and the artist credit is generally shared among all of the releases.

is there any reason not to use edition group series? I believe each audiobook edition group would match pretty much 1-to-1 to the equivalent MusicBrainz release group, tho I don’t know if there is actually a different standard for audiobook edition groups in BookBrainz…

[jwillikers]

@UltimateRiff

for file formats, I don’t imagine we would create a new edition for each format (provided the content is the same, of course). MusicBrainz currently does this for digital releases of music (MP3, FLAC, WAV, etc.), tho there are some cases where MusicBrainz does split digital releases, like different cover art, UPCs, and more. I don’t know if there’s a standard for BookBrainz yet tho…

tl;dr, I’m all for not splitting on only file format

I tend to agree on not splitting on file format. I guess if the last page number is somehow different for fixed-format file types for eBooks, you could end up with a separate edition. Maybe it’s best to default to keeping everything together until they diverge significantly enough to warrant separate editions.

@UltimateRiff

is there any reason not to use edition group series? I believe each audiobook edition group would match pretty much 1-to-1 to the equivalent MusicBrainz release group, tho I don’t know if there is actually a different standard for audiobook edition groups in BookBrainz…

I remember reading something in the documenation that briefly mentioned putting print/digital editions of books and audiobooks in the same edition group. Of course, I can’t find that now…