Thema Saved Filters
Saved filters are a great way to compile lists of specific topics. They can be used in Catalogues, on the Analytics page and on the Review Copies page as well a lot of the corresponding widgets.
You can find the dedicated Saved Filters page at the top right of Edelweiss:
But you can also add a widget to your homepage for easy access:
You build your filter from a rich selection of Attributes- here’s some notable ones:
Thema Place – Create a filter based on a specific location, perfect for tourist towns + local interest.
Thema Interest – This is one of the most useful attributes to build from; it includes interest age, thema relating to specific groups and cultures or social and cultural interests as well as holidays, events and seasonal interest.
Publication Date – Set dynamic filters to always know the soon-to-be-published books of any subject matter/genre.
Format – Want only Paperbacks or to get rid of any ebooks? This attribute can help with that.
Building a Filter
Let’s look at building a filter. Start by going to Saved Filters and press Add New Filter:
Add a name for your filter in the box after Save New Filter, you won’t be able to save until you do this, then start building!
We can make a filter for titles aimed at reluctant readers by selecting the Attribute Thema Interest Qualifier then Interest Qualifiers>Interest age/level>for reluctant or struggling readers (children/teenagers). Press the plus icon on this last one to add it to your filter. You’ll notice there’s also for adult emergent readers which you could add to the filter too or create a separate one for.
You can build on this filter to show titles for reluctant readers but specifically graphic novels. Drop down the attribute menu again, this time to Thema Subject Category and press the plus symbol preceding Graphic Novels, Comic books, Manga, Cartoons. We could refine this further to only Paperbacks under the attribute Format. Make sure to press Save after you’re done building!
Now let’s look at creating a filter using the attribute Publication Date. Let’s say that Historical Fiction does well in the shop, you can set up a dynamic filter to show you new Historical Fiction published each week. Start by setting up your new filter and naming it something like New Historical Fiction This Week. Now go to attribute Thema Subject Category and dig into Fiction and Related items>Historical fiction. Once you’ve added Historical fiction you can go to attribute Publication Date and select Starting Today Looking out 1 week. Of course, both the starting point and looking out length is editable too. If you have your saved filters widget set up on your homepage, you’ll now have an easily accessible place to see new historical fiction coming out that will automatically update itself.
Another attribute which is good to build from is Thema Place Qualifier.
This is perfect if you have a lot of interest in Local Interest. Go to the attribute Thema Place Qualifier and start digging to find your location! For me I go Place qualifiers>Europe>Western Europe>United Kingdom, Great Britain, England>East Anglia>Norfolk. You’ll often find further results, like East Anglia: Places of interest>Norfolk Broads which, if a publisher has tagged anything as this, will be great for a local interest section! You may also have a customer who’d like a holiday read specific to where they’re going, which this can be useful for. Set up a Paris filter, a Midlands one, a Laos one, a Spain one and so on.
You may find that the only titles that have been noted with Thema ‘place name’ are maps, but this will update if a new book comes out with some relation to the place and the publisher tags it as such.
Thema Time Period Qualifier is another great attribute. You can find titles on Prehistory from this, or any particular time period in human history. Maybe a school is studying Prehistory, add Prehistory to your filter and then go to Attribute Thema Subject Category and select Children’s Teenage and Educational to ensure the content is appropriate. To be as precise as possible you could instead go to Thema Interest Qualifier and pick a specific age/ age range under Interest age/ level.
You can apply any of the filters you make on the Analytics page. This is pretty powerful because I could have a Reluctant Readers Children’s Graphic Novels filter and applying this to Analytics will show me titles which fit this filter that are selling very well in the Indie Market. You could find the top adventure books for children with an interest age of 11 with this method for example.
You can turn the results of your filters into Excel files or even PDFs. Simply go to Other Actions along the top bar, make sure you press Select All and then either Create PDF or Export to File. The first time you create a PDF you’ll need to select a Template (ie 2 books per page) and then pick what elements you want visible in the PDF. Once you’ve made your selection of elements, that will be set for future PDF creation. These are great to email out to Schools and can take only seconds to create.
It is worth noting that books can only be pulled from specific topics/qualifiers if the Publisher has tagged them with that Thema code. So, there may be titles that you expect to see under a certain Thema, but they may not be there simply because they’ve slipped under the Publishers radar to be tagged as such.
So that’s the basics of using Thema for Saved Filters! There’s a massive selection of topics to pick from which I’ve barely scratched the surface of here. If you’re looking for an oddly specific type of book, chances are you can build a filter to find it. I’d recommend looking further into Thema Interest Qualifier, Interest qualifiers>Relating to specific groups and cultures to find titles that are often underrepresented in Bookshops.
Reach out to support@abovethetreeline.com if you’re ever having trouble with making a filter!