How essential are the tags?

[WasatchWind]

I'm coming from Wattpad, wondering how much of an impact good tags have on story success. I'd be interested to hear how people use them here.

 

[Deleted member 20302]

It varies. Sure some take does get more attention such as harem, girls love, gender bender or smut in this site.

You can see test this easily and quite clearly when you check out the new series. Look at how much views and readers they get in the last 24 hours of their release. All books start almost on the same footing, so you can try gauging a story success that way with the tags they used.

But in end, people are going to read what's in the content.

Anything that seems strange like a 2 or 3 despite being new, or even under 4 have their own reasons why a lot of people might not like it, even if it had tons of readers. Be it because of sentence structure, chapter length, grammar and spelling mistakes and most importantly, the plot.

 

[Kenjona]

Personally, very much so for me. Lets me tell whether I am interested in your story or not. I will read or not read based on the tags. There are a LOT of fictions going across the feed, so being able to narrow them down makes things easier for everyone. Wattpad, I used to go to but their Tag system seems corrupted or lousy and all over the place, as what I think I am getting is not always what I am getting.

 

[Arkus86]

I'm coming from Wattpad, wondering how much of an impact good tags have on story success. I'd be interested to hear how people use them here.

The title, the synopsis and the tags are the first thing people will see of your story and it is how they decide most of the time if they are even interested in giving it a try. Neglect those and people are likely to pass it without a second glance most of the time, not to mention it won't come up based on tag search if there are no tags.

 

[WasatchWind]

Personally, very much so for me. Lets me tell whether I am interested in your story or not. I will read or not read based on the tags. There are a LOT of fictions going across the feed, so being able to narrow them down makes things easier for everyone. Wattpad, I used to go to but their Tag system seems corrupted or lousy and all over the place, as what I think I am getting is not always what I am getting.

Yeah, Wattpad's tag system annoyed me, though I find myself annoyed at SH's for different reasons. I find that there are a lot of tags obviously catering to certain genres, yet all I was tacking on my fantasy novel were generic things like "bad to good."

 

[WasatchWind]

It varies. Sure some take does get more attention such as harem, girls love, gender bender or smut in this site.

You can see test this easily and quite clearly when you check out the new series. Look at how much views and readers they get in the last 24 hours of their release. All books start almost on the same footing, so you can try gauging a story success that way with the tags they used.

But in end, people are going to read what's in the content.

Anything that seems strange like a 2 or 3 despite being new, or even under 4 have their own reasons why a lot of people might not like it, even if it had tons of readers. Be it because of sentence structure, chapter length, grammar and spelling mistakes and most importantly, the plot.

I was afraid of this - that certain tags do inherently better. But I guess I'm doomed to obscurity because I won't write a gender bend or a sex novel.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I find it essential. When I first started on here, I feel like while there's a lot of genres to select from, there are still few that aren't on here to choose so I would use the tags to describe the kind of story I'm thinking more. However tags are limited in description - more like a lot of themes or tropes from isekai/litrprg/transmigration/cultivation (and the stories I have in mind don't really fall along those lines). I wish we can create our own tags, sometimes the tag I'm looking for is not there.

 

[WasatchWind]

I find it essential. When I first started on here, I feel like while there's a lot of genres to select from, there are still few that aren't on here to choose so I would use the tags to describe the kind of story I'm thinking more. However tags are limited in description - more like a lot of themes or tropes from isekai/litrprg/transmigration/cultivation (and the stories I have in mind don't really fall along those lines). I wish we can create our own tags, sometimes the tag I'm looking for is not there.

Yeah, I'm awfully confused why making tags isn't allowed. The current tags are heavily skewed towards certain genres.

 

[Moonpearl]

I'd say they're pretty important, since they provide a sneak-peak into what your novel will contain, beyond what you've put in the description.

I've seen some good novels use no tags and get next to no readers for it (like, single digits), and I personally use tags to decide whether a story is and isn't for me.

My recommendation for tagging is to tag:

• Female, Male or Genderless Protagonist (and/or Multiple POVs, Multiple Protagonists if relevant)
• Some Protagonist tags (type in "Protagonist" and wait, and the list will filter for you)
• Love Interest and/or Couple tags, if applicable
• Trigger warnings
• (For Fantasy) The important species in your novel - I recommend not tagging for every little type, because people who want to read novels dedicated to dragons will not be happy to read through your whole novel for two sentences in chapter 93
• (For Fantasy) Type in "Magic" and take your pick of those relevant
• Important roles like knights, royalty, nobility, etc. that are very relevant to your novel
• Important themes like "Cross-dressing", "Adultery", and so forth

 

[WasatchWind]

I'd say they're pretty important, since they provide a sneak-peak into what your novel will contain, beyond what you've put in the description.

I've seen some good novels use no tags and get next to no readers for it (like, single digits), and I personally use tags to decide whether a story is and isn't for me.

My recommendation for tagging is to tag:

• Female, Male or Genderless Protagonist (and/or Multiple POVs, Multiple Protagonists if relevant)
• Some Protagonist tags (type in "Protagonist" and wait, and the list will filter for you)
• Love Interest and/or Couple tags, if applicable
• Trigger warnings
• (For Fantasy) The important species in your novel - I recommend not tagging for every little type, because people who want to read novels dedicated to dragons will not be happy to read through your whole novel for two sentences in chapter 93
• (For Fantasy) Type in "Magic" and take your pick of those relevant
• Important roles like knights, royalty, nobility, etc. that are very relevant to your novel
• Important themes like "Cross-dressing", "Adultery", and so forth

The annoying thing is the limited amount of tags. A story about Dragons gets a dragon tag, but my story is set in a fantasy world with merfolk, and have no tag to use. Is there a way to request new tags?

 

[Moonpearl]

The annoying thing is the limited amount of tags. A story about Dragons gets a dragon tag, but my story is set in a fantasy world with merfolk, and have no tag to use. Is there a way to request new tags?

While it's annoying at times, having no cap on tags would make the tagging system useless, since everyone would just spam as many as possible to increase exposure.
This way, you have to really consider whether the tags you're using serve your novel.

As for requesting new tags, you can try asking here: https://forum.scribblehub.com/forums/feature-requests.26/
But there's an issue where we apparently have both too many tags and yet not enough, so people sometimes don't like suggestions for new ones.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

While it's annoying at times, having no cap on tags would make the tagging system useless, since everyone would just spam as many as possible to increase exposure.
This way, you have to really consider whether the tags you're using serve your novel.

As for requesting new tags, you can try asking here: https://forum.scribblehub.com/forums/feature-requests.26/
But there's an issue where we apparently have both too many tags and yet not enough, so people sometimes don't like suggestions for new ones.

Interesting. Yeah, like @WakerOfWinds said, my stories don't really fall in line with those tags that are available either since I don't really write those popular genre types/tropes that are more dominant on here. And I looked over all those tags...but what if just none of those tags really described our story really well? I'll check out the place to request new tags though. I wish we can make our own tags as well.

 

[Reisinling]

While it's annoying at times, having no cap on tags would make the tagging system useless, since everyone would just spam as many as possible to increase exposure.
This way, you have to really consider whether the tags you're using serve your novel.

As for requesting new tags, you can try asking here: https://forum.scribblehub.com/forums/feature-requests.26/
But there's an issue where we apparently have both too many tags and yet not enough, so people sometimes don't like suggestions for new ones.

But.. would it? I don't know if you ever used stack overflow, but I believe in the tag system there they allow users above certain amount of reputation points add new tags.
All creators want to use tags that are already in use/would be used in the future, so that others will find their novel by searching that tag, it makes it less likely they would just spam useless stuff.

 

[Moonpearl]

Interesting. Yeah, like @WakerOfWinds said, my stories don't really fall in line with those tags that are available either since I don't really write those popular genre types/tropes that are more dominant on here. And I looked over all those tags...but what if just none of those tags really described our story really well? I'll check out the place to request new tags though. I wish we can make our own tags as well.

Looking at your story, it's a tragedy romance? There should be a fair handful available to you.

What tags would you add if you could?

But.. would it? I don't know if you ever used stack overflow, but I believe in the tag system there they allow users above certain amount of reputation points add new tags.
All creators want to use tags that are already in use/would be used in the future, so that others will find their novel by searching that tag, it makes it less likely they would just spam useless stuff.

I was talking about the cap on using existing tags - right now, you can only use 25 tags for your novel.

As for adding tags directly, I remain dubious about that. I'm pretty sure we would just end up with multiple tags for the same thing, like you get over on AO3.

 

[AliceShiki]

I was afraid of this - that certain tags do inherently better. But I guess I'm doomed to obscurity because I won't write a gender bend or a sex novel.

You are not. While some types of stories are certainly more popular than others, there is a pretty wide variety of stories that were able to get extremely popular in this site.

You don't need to cater to anybody's niche to get popular. Just write something regularly and with quality and you'll end up getting readers.

Just search for the top stories yourself if you're worried, you'll see it for yourself.

Yeah, I'm awfully confused why making tags isn't allowed. The current tags are heavily skewed towards certain genres.

You can make requests for whatever tag you want, and Tony can approve or reject your request depending on rather or not he finds your reasoning enough to warrant a new tag.

As for adding tags directly, I remain dubious about that. I'm pretty sure we would just end up with multiple tags for the same thing, like you get over on AO3.

Adding them directly would be a horrible idea. NU was like this a few years back and we regularly had to check the edit logs all the time to see if people didn't create a new tag by writing "Reincarnated at Another World" instead of "Reincarnated to Another World" or something like that.

It didn't help that I often times forgot which one was the right wording, so I had to manually check the story's tags to see if it was at the right listings, instead of being able to check from just the edit logs...

So yeah... I'm pretty sure adding them directly is not gonna happen. Making a feature request for them is just much more sound.

 

[WasatchWind]

You are not. While some types of stories are certainly more popular than others, there is a pretty wide variety of stories that were able to get extremely popular in this site.

You don't need to cater to anybody's niche to get popular. Just write something regularly and with quality and you'll end up getting readers.

Just search for the top stories yourself if you're worried, you'll see it for yourself.

You can make requests for whatever tag you want, and Tony can approve or reject your request depending on rather or not he finds your reasoning enough to warrant a new tag.

Adding them directly would be a horrible idea. NU was like this a few years back and we regularly had to check the edit logs all the time to see if people didn't create a new tag by writing "Reincarnated at Another World" instead of "Reincarnated to Another World" or something like that.

It didn't help that I often times forgot which one was the right wording, so I had to manually check the story's tags to see if it was at the right listings, instead of being able to check from just the edit logs...

So yeah... I'm pretty sure adding them directly is not gonna happen. Making a feature request for them is just much more sound.

I'm not saying necessarily that no one reads other genres, but any success is dramatically stunted if you are not doing "isekai, gender bender, girl's love, or... ughhhh... harem. (seriously, why is that one of most popular genres?)

When I look at new stories, ones with these tags almost immediately are not only getting views, but comments as well. It feels like more traditional genres have a much harder time.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

Looking at your story, it's a tragedy romance? There should be a fair handful available to you.

What tags would you add if you could?

I don't remember exactly what I wanted to tag my stories for. I'll have to revisit the tagging part someday after I finish writing. There's this current published story and another story that I have but saved in draft mode.

 

[Deleted member 45782]

I'm not saying necessarily that no one reads other genres, but any success is dramatically stunted if you are not doing "isekai, gender bender, girl's love, or... ughhhh... harem. (seriously, why is that one of most popular genres?)

When I look at new stories, ones with these tags almost immediately are not only getting views, but comments as well. It feels like more traditional genres have a much harder time.

Each writing platform has certain popular stories/tropes its kinda known for. It depends on the readers of this site too. Like certain writing platforms are known for romance, and werewolves...here's isekai, litrpg, and etc. etc. etc. You'll find readers more interested in those genres, and some readers only go for the genres the site is known or popular for.

So yeah, your story may not get as popular as those story genres listed on here and I can feel that. But that is what makes popularity, popularity.

 

[Kenjona]

Yeah, I'm awfully confused why making tags isn't allowed. The current tags are heavily skewed towards certain genres.

One of the issues I have with wattpad is they have too many tags for the same or near same thing but noway to differentiate them from each other. Mind you I would like to see a few more tags to separate out stuff that get lumped together (gender bender for one) but not to the degree that wattpad has gotten. Would not mind an actual dictionary too for the tags too as many people can have different opinions on a tag.

 

[AliceShiki]

I'm not saying necessarily that no one reads other genres, but any success is dramatically stunted if you are not doing "isekai, gender bender, girl's love, or... ughhhh... harem. (seriously, why is that one of most popular genres?)

When I look at new stories, ones with these tags almost immediately are not only getting views, but comments as well. It feels like more traditional genres have a much harder time.

I'd say that there is a fair number of very popular stories that don't fit into any of those genres.

One of the issues I have with wattpad is they have too many tags for the same or near same thing but noway to differentiate them from each other. Mind you I would like to see a few more tags to separate out stuff that get lumped together (gender bender for one) but not to the degree that wattpad has gotten. Would not mind an actual dictionary too for the tags too as many people can have different opinions on a tag.

I'm curious, what do you want to make gender bender less "lumped together"?

Here are a bunch of tags that can fit into the gender bender genre, to different extents of course:

• Cross-dressing
• Female to Male
• Futanari
• Male to Female
• Protagonist with Multiple Bodies
• Transgender
• Trap
• [A bunch of Reincarnation related tags]
• [A bunch of Transported/Transmigration related tags]

... What else do you need to properly depict through tags what you want to show in a gender bender novel?

As for the dictionary, people already asked for it, but never got any answer... My guess is that Tony doesn't want to force authors to adhere to a specific definition to what a given tag/genre means, so he is leaving it vague on purpose... But that's just my guess.