Tag, you’re it! What bookstores should learn from fanfiction by Strange Seawolf

A few years ago, publishers discovered tropes, and as someone who writes both fanfiction and original works (and who doesn’t agree that the first is somehow “lesser” than the second, but that’s a topic for another day), I am always stumped how little of their true potential is used by bookstores.

If you look at websites staging transformative works like Archive of Our Own (AO3) you can see how tropes are used as tags there to help people find stories they will enjoy reading. See, I love hurt/comfort, slow burns, and found family. So, out of millions of free works I just filter by specifically those terms. There are also some tropes I hate. I can’t stand the love triangle, for example, because, what the heck, just sit down and talk about your needs instead of creating a big drama! But that’s just me and I can simply exclude stories that are tagged that way. It is neat, it is easy, and it results in a reading list of stories that have the potential to resonate with me. Sure, I am sometimes disappointed at the quality—although I have read fanfic that was far better than some traditionally published books hyped up as must-reads—but I usually enjoy where the story takes me.

Now, look at bookstores, the places I am actually going to pay for the story I am about to read. What do I get? I have to search by categories. That system originates from a time when books had to be physically put on shelves. You couldn’t put one book onto several shelves, so, of course, librarians and bookstore owners had to think very carefully about what shelf was most fitting for a book.

But in the digital age this physical restriction isn’t there anymore, much more powerful search and filtering tools are available. There is no good reason why I still have to go to the category “Science Fiction”, then to the subcategory “Space Opera”, and then still have to scan through every description of every book to see if it sounds like a story I would like to read. The only filtering option I get are ratings, ranks, and reviews but, let’s be honest, that often says more about the time and money someone could invest in marketing than about how much I am going to like a story.

When I buy clothes online, I can narrow the results down by color, size, shape. Why can’t we have the same with online bookstores? The tropes are already in the descriptions—just put them into tags! Let authors add tags they found fitting but couldn’t fit in the blurb! Then offer the option to include and exclude tags for the search results. Tagging is also a great way to handle triggering content: just tag accordingly and readers can avoid content that puts them in a bad place—or they can’t complain when they read the book, anyway.

And why not go one step further? Let readers add tags to books just like they can add reviews. I am certain it would pay for bookstores: when readers find more books that resonate with them there is fewer reading time wasted on stories that land on the “did not finish” pile or result in bad reviews. As a result, people will come back faster to look what’s new in their favorite tags.

The technology for it is there, tested and refined. It is about time bookstores make use of it.

Written by Strange Seawolf
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