Tags, Tags, Tags

What is it with writers not using tags? Where they born with an inherent dislike for them or did they develop a taste for it? It sickens me.

Contrary to popular belief, your story actually doesn’t need a humongous amount of tags to be successful(although it certainly can’t hurt) but what it absolutely needs is a key amount of tags.

Obvious reason first. People who punch in a key word will be shown your story if it features said tag. I’m talking about stuff like “lesbian” “BDSM”, “MILF” any broad term you can think off that fits your story, you want to have in there.

No, I’m not giving you a list of all the hot tags, you lazy fucker. Go check out some popular stories and copy them.

The not so obvious reason is that readers also like to take a gander at the tags to decide if they should spend some quality time with your produce. Clear, straightforward tags can absolutely make the difference between readers jumping ship or carrying on.

And lastly, some readers appreciate a warning if the content they are about to read has stuff in it that might trigger them. This is a bit of a double edged sword of course, If there’s one chapter among hundreds that features a detailed description of your characters having explosive diarrhea you might not want to plaster that all across your front page.

You know what, just don’t have explosive diarrhea in your story. Just because it works for George R.R. Martin doesn’t mean you can pull it off too.