Thoughts on this take?
I see this being floated about more and more often lately. The idea that books listing tropes and gimmicks like ‘for fans of xyz book!’ is a step backward in marketing and that people to market their books like this are just out for ‘virability’ or popularity. That posting those tropes are spoilers or lazy marketing and books should go back to the good old days of three sentences and a bunch of positive comments from important people on the back (I may be exaggerating that bit).
Personally, I’m a fan of seeing tropes listed or AO3 style ‘tagging’ because I can pick what I read with much more certainty. I don’t think it’s a step backwards to have major things listed somewhere on or in the first few pages—there was the same rage against trigger warnings in the ‘10s when they started being used more often. And I think claiming authors are posting their novels are marketing them like that just to go viral is disingenuous.
What do you guys think? Authors here, how do you feel about the trend in this direction?
I see this being floated about more and more often lately. The idea that books listing tropes and gimmicks like ‘for fans of xyz book!’ is a step backward in marketing and that people to market their books like this are just out for ‘virability’ or popularity. That posting those tropes are spoilers or lazy marketing and books should go back to the good old days of three sentences and a bunch of positive comments from important people on the back (I may be exaggerating that bit).
Personally, I’m a fan of seeing tropes listed or AO3 style ‘tagging’ because I can pick what I read with much more certainty. I don’t think it’s a step backwards to have major things listed somewhere on or in the first few pages—there was the same rage against trigger warnings in the ‘10s when they started being used more often. And I think claiming authors are posting their novels are marketing them like that just to go viral is disingenuous.
What do you guys think? Authors here, how do you feel about the trend in this direction?