[kCopeseeley]

I belong to createspace and they are all talking about the tags being gone, too.  Except, someone pointed out that they still exist for paperback books.  She also said, and I can't speak for the legitimacy of it, that Amazon had told her they had discontinued the tags.

It's weird, though, that the regular books would still be taggable and not the ebooks.  Maybe that person that said it was because of web spiders using them to create fake sites for books was right?

Anyway, those who were hoping they might come back —it might be a false hope.

 

[Ali Cooper]

The paperback version of one of my books (not create space) is showing tags in US but not in UK.

Presumably amazon will still want to provide - and indeed they're still showing - ranks in different genres and sub-genres. So I guess they'll either reintroduce tags with a limited number to choose from or make them only available for the publisher to add - again, probably limited choice. To be honest, just having the author/publisher decide the categories makes more sense, and it would prevent any 'spite' tags creeping in.

 

[kCopeseeley]

To be honest, just having the author/publisher decide the categories makes more sense, and it would prevent any 'spite' tags creeping in.

Yeah, I've heard of people being pretty spiteful with them. A revamp of the system would be fine with me. Honestly, I don't even know if they have any affect at all on sales, so I'm not sure if I should miss them or not.

 

[Sara Pierce]

Tags, from what I've seen, were getting out of hand: people would be spiteful of a novel and tag it far differently than what it actually was. I'm sure indie books, based on the "freedom" and perceived competition were targeted more so. I've nothing to back it up but their removal this week could be why so many indie writers are noticing a drop in sales. *shrug*

 

[J.R.Mooneyham]

Tags seem to have little if any effect on sales, based on a random sampling I've seen of successfully selling books on Amazon (many good selling books have almost no tags at all). The reviews seem far more important.

 

[-Monica-]

The paperback version of one of my books (not create space) is showing tags in US but not in UK.

Presumably amazon will still want to provide - and indeed they're still showing - ranks in different genres and sub-genres. So I guess they'll either reintroduce tags with a limited number to choose from or make them only available for the publisher to add - again, probably limited choice. To be honest, just having the author/publisher decide the categories makes more sense, and it would prevent any 'spite' tags creeping in.

Limiting the tag choices? It's about time!
Spite tags... misspelled tags... synonym tags... bob waz 'ere tags... nonsensical tags... are all unnecessarily complicated and completely useless at best

 

[philvan]

The only real function of tags must be to guide a reader's search for a particular genre or content. Multiple tagging by people who haven't read the actual book seems pointless to me, so allowing only the publisher or author to do this can only help with leading prospective buyers to our books. Provided, of course, that the same rules apply for all, big or indy.

 

[Carol (was Dara)]

My sales have actually gone up since I lost my tags so I'm not sure how much difference they ever really made. I guess time will tell whether this is a permanent thing or not.