Wikipedia talk:Notability (books)

I'm opening this in regards to this AfD. The nominator's argument was this: "Adaptation into manga or anime alone does not automatically satisfy a light novel’s notability under WP:NBOOK".

The third criteria does mention making a significant contribution to various things, but it does admittedly feel a little vague. I think it might be good to add something a bit more explicit about when/if adaptations can be used to establish notability for a book. Here are my thoughts towards this.

• Adaptations should be seen as an extension of the original work.
• If the adaptation is notable enough for its own article, that should be seen as establishing notability for the source material. So by this, if a notable movie were made then the reviews for the film could be seen as something that could establish notability for the book.
• At the same time, if coverage for the book is otherwise very light (except for the film) editors should consider consolidating them into a single article in the way that articles on anime/manga tend to be included in a single location. In my opinion the book should be the main target of the article, but if the film is far more noteworthy then it could be a case of the film being the main subject of the article and the book itself limited to a section.
• If coverage for both is fairly light but the cumulative coverage would otherwise be enough to establish notability for an article in other circumstances, this should be seen as enough for the book to pass NBOOK. (IE, one review for the book, 1-2 reviews for the film would be enough to pass NBOOK.)

I think that's the gist of what we should include. It definitely needs fine tuning. I don't know that we need a whole new criteria, just maybe a bit of a note somewhere. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 16:06, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

(came from the AfD), IMO this comes more as a difference on how anime/manga series and western series are written on Wikipedia. Western series generally will have one article each for the book, TV adaptation, movie adaptation (and so on), which means each would need to meet GNG separately. Anime/manga series generally have only one "franchise" article encompassing all formats/adaptations, which allows sourcing from any adaptation to be used for GNG.

If we applied the western way of writing articles onto that AfD, we should only have one article on the manga, the light novel and anime would fail GNG as separate articles. But as the article combines everything together it works. Jumpytoo Talk 18:50, 28 November 2025 (UTC)

In general, the anime project interprets criteria 3 (The book has been considered by reliable sources to have made a significant contribution to any of the sciences, humanities or arts, or to a notable or significant motion picture, or other art form, or event or political or religious movement) to mean that works with an anime adaptation are notable. The criteria does not require the adaptation to have an article, just to be "significant", which I believe an anime television series is. Link20XX (talk) 04:15, 29 November 2025 (UTC)

It might be good to have a footnote added to give clarification for anime/manga series. Although I'll also say that there are quite a few Western series where a series page would be better than individual book entries, as the coverage tends to be kind of spotty. But that's another discussion. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 19:59, 1 December 2025 (UTC)

does the New York best seller times count as a award J😢 JadenGotLost 20:58, 25 December 2025 (UTC)

@JadenGotLost: It can count towards notability, but it cannot establish notability based on that alone. The reason for this is that although getting onto the list is certainly a feat, it's also possible to game the system and buy your way onto the list. There were concerns about this so at the time it was added the idea was that only the most main lists would be used (fiction, non-fiction, children's literature). The current version of the criteria is kind of vague, but the gist is that if the specific NYT list is frequently reprinted by other reliable sources, it should be usable as something that can count towards notability. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 12:58, 27 January 2026 (UTC)

I've opened a discussion about whether or not AudioFile can still be considered a reliable sources here at the reliable sources noticeboard. Basic gist is that there's evidence that the magazine used a pay-to-play model in the past for indie publishers. These reviews are not clearly marked, so there's concern about that as well. It's unclear if they are going to continue this model now that it has been acquired by Kirkus. My hope is that if they do, that they will clearly mark them ala Kirkus Indie. ReaderofthePack(formerly Tokyogirl79) (｡◕‿◕｡) 13:02, 27 January 2026 (UTC)