Genres, Tags & Content Warnings

Genres, tags, and content warnings serve a dual purpose on BookAuth: they help readers find your book and they set accurate expectations before reading. Getting these right significantly impacts your book's visibility and reader satisfaction.

What You'll Learn

• How to select the best genres for your book
• How tags improve search discoverability
• How to add content warnings responsibly
• How genre and tag data affects recommendations and AI search

Genres

What Genres Do

Genres define where your book appears in the browse directory and affect recommendation algorithms. Readers browsing by genre (e.g., "Fantasy" or "Romance") see only books tagged with those genres.

How to Set Genres

1. Open the book editor (Content > My Books > [Book])
2. Find the "Genres" section
3. Select up to 3 genres from the taxonomy dropdown
4. Click "Save"

Genre Taxonomy

BookAuth maintains a curated genre taxonomy organized by major categories:

Fiction

• Literary Fiction, Historical Fiction, Contemporary Fiction
• Romance (Contemporary, Historical, Paranormal, Romantic Suspense)
• Fantasy (Epic, Urban, Dark, High, Low, Sword & Sorcery)
• Science Fiction (Space Opera, Cyberpunk, Hard Sci-Fi, Military)
• Mystery & Thriller (Cozy Mystery, Psychological Thriller, Legal Thriller)
• Horror (Supernatural, Gothic, Cosmic)
• Young Adult, New Adult, Middle Grade, Children's

Non-Fiction

• Memoir, Biography, History
• Self-Help, Business, Technology
• True Crime, Science, Philosophy
• Cooking, Travel, Health & Fitness

Best Practices for Genre Selection

• Be specific — "Paranormal Romance" performs better than "Romance" because readers self-select into sub-genres
• Use all 3 slots — more genre associations mean more browse category appearances
• Match reader expectations — if your book has romantic elements but isn't primarily a romance, don't select Romance as a genre
• Check competitors — see what genres similar books use on BookAuth's catalog

Tags

What Tags Do

Tags are freeform keywords that improve search discoverability. Unlike genres (which are curated), tags are anything you type. They're used by BookAuth's search engine and the AI assistant's semantic search.

How to Add Tags

1. Open the book editor
2. Find the "Tags" section
3. Type a tag and press Enter to create a chip
4. Repeat for additional tags (recommended: 5-15 tags)
5. Click ✕ on any chip to remove a tag

Types of Tags to Include

Tag Category	Examples	Purpose
Tropes	enemies-to-lovers, chosen-one, slow-burn	Readers search by favorite tropes
Themes	redemption, found-family, coming-of-age	Thematic discovery
Setting	medieval-world, space-station, small-town	Location-based browsing
Mood	dark, humorous, heartwarming, suspenseful	Emotional tone matching
Comparisons	fans-of-brandon-sanderson, game-of-thrones-vibes	Comp-title discoverability
Format	standalone, duology, series-starter	Reading commitment signals

Tag Best Practices

• Use lowercase with hyphens: enemies-to-lovers not Enemies to Lovers
• Be specific: magic-academy is better than magic
• Don't reuse genre names as tags — they're already tracked separately
• Include common reader search terms — think about how readers naturally describe books

Pro Tip: The AI Assistant can suggest tags for your book. Ask: "What tags would you recommend for my book [title]?" and the AI will analyze your synopsis and genre to suggest relevant keywords.

Content Warnings

What Content Warnings Do

Content warnings inform readers about potentially sensitive content before they purchase or read. They're displayed as a small accordion section on the book detail page — collapsed by default, expandable on click.

How to Add Content Warnings

1. Open the book editor
2. Find the "Content Warnings" section
3. Check applicable warnings from the predefined list:
   • Violence / Graphic Violence
   • Sexual Content / Explicit Sexual Content
   • Strong Language / Profanity
   • Drug / Alcohol Use
   • Self-Harm / Suicide references
   • Abuse (Physical, Emotional, Sexual)
   • Death / Grief
   • Racism / Discrimination
   • Eating Disorders
   • War / Combat
4. Add custom warnings if needed (free-text field)
5. Click "Save"

Why Content Warnings Matter

• Reader trust — transparent authors build stronger reader relationships
• ARC success — ARC readers who know what to expect leave more thoughtful reviews
• Review protection — prevents negative reviews from readers who encountered unexpected content
• Community standards — many book clubs require content warnings for discussion selection

Best Practices

• Be honest — under-warning is worse than over-warning
• Use the predefined list when possible for consistency
• Add custom warnings for niche-specific triggers
• Don't use content warnings for common genre expectations (e.g., "violence" in a war novel is expected)

How Metadata Affects Discovery

Your genres, tags, and content combine to power multiple discovery systems:

System	How It Uses Metadata
Browse Directory	Genres determine category placement
Search Engine	Title, tags, and synopsis are full-text searched
AI Assistant	Semantic embeddings of all content for concept-based search
Recommendations	Genre and tag similarity powers "Readers Also Liked"
ARC Matching	Genre alignment between book and reader preferences

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: Can I change genres after publishing?
A: Yes. Genre changes take effect immediately and affect browse directory placement.

Q: How many tags should I use?
A: Aim for 5-15. Too few limits discoverability; more than 20 creates diminishing returns.

Q: Are content warnings visible in search results?
A: No. Content warnings only appear on the book detail page in a collapsible section.

Q: Can readers search by content warnings?
A: Not currently. However, the AI assistant can help: readers asking "Find me a fantasy book without graphic violence" will factor content warnings in RAG-powered responses.

Related Articles

• Uploading Your First Book
• Managing Book Metadata & Details
• Searching & Filtering Your Book Catalog