How to structure repetitive data under an entity type bundle?

Question

I'd like to use Drupal in one of my projects but I'm wondering what's the best way to organize my content.

I have a list of authors. Each author has 3 properties:

• name
• bio
• list of books

On the list of books each book has 6 properties(5 text fields + image).

I was thinking about creating entity type bundle 'Author' and 'Book', then assigning certain books to certain authors and displaying lists of books on author page.

The downside is that on the content list I'll have a list of many different 'pages' of content type 'Book' that can't be easily filtered by author. Also, creating new content type for each author is not a good solution.

1) Is it the best possible solution for Drupal?

2) Would it be possible to create:

a) hierarhical list of author/book_list posts or

c) content type Author with list of books on it's page(book field with book properties fields)

I'd appreciate your advice :).

Answer 1

1.
There is no "best" possible solution for Drupal that can be given here. There are many ways to do it and the best way for one site might not be the best way for another, so it depends on your specific requirements, which we don't know.

Having said that, the way you are planning to do it should work fine. You can create a view with relationships that will allow you to easily filter by author.

From a data point of view it is also good because books and authors could logically be considered different content types.

An alternative solution is the field collection module but it works a little different to your proposed solution so your specific data and requirements will indicate which is the better solution.

If you don't have first hand experience with the different methods the best way forward would be to try any solutions you think may be good and then decide which is the best for you for this project.

2.
a. Yes. Depending on how you end up configuring the content types and your exact listing requirements the solution might be a little different and may require differing amounts of custom themeing or development but it is possible.
b. ?
c. Yes. What I wrote for point a above also applies here however generally speaking I would say this requirement will be easier to satisfy than a.

Answer 2

You could always make another view to supplement or replace your content list. If you're using Entity Reference for the relationship between book and author you can create an easily filterable list of books.

Alternatively, 2c is a viable option. You can create a group of fields on Author called book using field collection and set the group to have unlimited instances.