THE Group for Authors! discussion

Can anyone tell me how to classify my book as a thriller please? I can't seem to find how to do it on my profile page or on the book's page.

Thank you in advance.

There is no way to classify your book as a thriller per say.

Genres on GR are crowd sourced from the shelf names that users define.

You can add the genres you write to your author profile by editing the author profile, there are 3 or 4 fields with drop downs 3/4 of the way down the page or add your book to your own book shelf called Thrillers

Paula wrote: "There is no way to classify your book as a thriller per say.

Genres on GR are crowd sourced from the shelf names that users define.

You can add the genres you write to your author profile by edit..."

Hi Paula.
Thank you kindly for your instructive response. I shall follow your directions.
Best,
Craig

Shelving as thriller should fairly quickly show "popular shelves" as "thriller" on your book data page.

I'm pretty such once at least two members shelve your book as thriller, the book page will show "genre" as "thriller" [can take a while for the goodreads cache to catch up and get book page up to date].

Looks like one member has already shelved as "thrillers" — I would hope the shelves crowdsourcing into genres handles plural/singular.

Goodreads title search doesn't. If in a couple of days your book still isn't showing a genre, consider having personal shelves called "thriller" and "thrillers". (like I said, not sure, so I could be overthinking and making you do extra work and unnecessarily duplicating shelves.)

Craig wrote: "Can anyone tell me how to classify my book as a thriller please? I can't seem to find how to do it on my profile page or on the book's page.

Thank you in advance."

Hi Craig,

There is a place where you can add the genre of your book under metadata. I believe this is a recommendation system built into goodreads, although I'm not certain of how it works.

To add your metadata, click on your book. In the middle of the page on your right you will see the words "edit details". Click on that, then at the very top you will see a tab for "show metadata"
Go to that tab and answer the questions. Question number 2 is where you can fill in your genre. When you're finished don't forget to click on the save button.

I hope this information helps you. :)
Belinda

The metadata information can be a part of what goes into generating recommendations (including by genre); but, is not visible on book data page unless a member clicks to see or add to when reviewing (or from the review edit screen, don't have to write a review to add metadata — but that review page is where goodreads members see a choice to edit metadata).

Certainly a good idea to make your book's data as complete as possible.

Most goodreads features - including recommendations and exploring/browsing books by shelves or genres - are going to be sorted by most to least popular (ratings and shelvings) so not realistically likely to see a quick or immediate effect until more members shelve/rate/review your book. Doesn't mean you shouldn't shelve book and fill in the metadata; just that it may take a while to have an effect.

If curious, the thriller genre by popular shelves is at http://www.goodreads.com/shelf/show/t... (when I looked top book had more than 800K ratings and just over 2K members shelving as thriller.)

Exploring by genre for thriller is at http://www.goodreads.com/genres/thril...

@Craig, currently the metadata for your book is empty. The screen I see under metadata tab:

Debbie wrote: "Shelving as thriller should fairly quickly show "popular shelves" as "thriller" on your book data page.

I'm pretty such once at least two members shelve your book as thriller, the book page will s..."

Hi Debbie.
Thank you very much for your comprehensive responses. I will certainly follow your guidance and expect a positive result. Your efforts in answering my question so thoroughly is appreciated.
Best regards,
Craig

Belinda wrote: "Craig wrote: "Can anyone tell me how to classify my book as a thriller please? I can't seem to find how to do it on my profile page or on the book's page.

Thank you in advance."

Hi Craig,

There..."

Hi Belinda.
Thank you very much for also contributing a constructive reply to my question. Your time is greatly appreciated.
Best regards,
Craig

You're welcome, Craig. Good luck to you.

And thank you Debbie for your explanation of how metadata works. That definitely helps me out as well.

Belinda :)

You're welcome. (I don't completely understand the metadata-end of things).

I think Goodreads is planning on some additional metadata options; (rumblings on other threads and some info requests).

The recommendations being generated — multi-factors. And also tied to member shelf options. So, unfortunately, not something anyone can say "do this one thing and you are sure to see your book recommended" ....

Thank you, Paula, Debbie and Belinda. Your advice has been very helpful. I'm so glad I found this thread as I've been wondering how I can raise the profile of my new book The Magic Mixer. I've managed to do all that you've recommended. I'm so new to this, but I'm so glad I joined the Author Feedback group.

I shelve my books under various tags I use for the other books I read. I find this helpful because a) it gives the reader an idea of what the book will be about, and b) it helps the reader find similar books on that shelf (or books that I think are similar).

Here's an example of how I shelved one of my own books (note that the shelves are not unequivocally positive): http://www.goodreads.com/review/show/...