On the All Romance and OmniLit sites, customers have two fabulous Search tools to help them find specific books. The Quick Search is the most obvious, with its large text box in the upper right hand corner of the website header. But what about the Advanced Search? If you haven’t used this tool recently, you’re going to love the new features!
Advanced Search link
The Advanced Search link is just to the left of the Quick Search field in the website header. When you click on it, a new window will open that looks like this:
Advanced Search menu options
You’ll notice that the Title, Publisher, Author and Tags options appear here just as they do in the Quick Search. So what can the Advanced Search offer that the Quick Search doesn’t? Read on to find out!
Search by Category: The Category Search options allow you to limit the scope of a category search or seek out books that fall into two or more categories, such as Paranormal and Steampunk, or Western/Cowboy and Free Reads. Even better, you can use the “and”, “or” and “not” options to further define your parameters.
Use “and” to search for books that are definitely listed in both categories.
- Example: Contemporary AND Romantic Comedy would give you books that are light-hearted contemporary romances versus Contemporary AND Drama which would be more serious contemporary romances.
Use “or” to search for books that are listed in either category but not both.
- Example: Historical Regency OR Steampunk would give you books that are Regencies but not Steampunk, as well as books that are Steampunk but not Regencies.
Use “not” to search for books that are in the first category but are not in the second category.
- Example: Vampires/Werewolves NOT Erotica would give you books that are vampire or werewolf romances but which are not erotica titles.
Search by ISBN: If you have the ISBN for the book you want, paste it in the ISBN text box, click Search Now, and the book will pop up quickly.
Search by Flame Rating: If you know that the books you like to read all fall into a certain Flame Rating, then selecting this setting will limit the search to books with that flame rating. Keep in mind, however, that many books, especially those in Secure formats, do not have flame ratings specified, so if you set a flame rating, any book without a flame rating will be excluded.
Exclude Free Reads and/or Pre-order Titles: If you only want to see books that are available for immediate download, click the box for “Don’t Include Pre-Order Titles”. If you know the book(s) you’re searching for aren’t free reads, click on the “Don’t Include Free Reads” box.
Limit book formats to those your device(s) can open: If you know your device will only open specific file formats, you can click on those boxes in the File Formats section so that only books available in at least one of those formats will show in the search.
NOTE – The Advanced Search keeps the information you’ve entered in the form after you complete a search, which is great if you’re slowly narrowing down your options. However, if you want to start over with an unrelated search, you’ll want to click the “Clear Settings” button to remove the settings you specified for the previous search.
Now Digimonkey will give you a couple of examples of the Advanced Search in action!
Example 1
Digimonkey reads a lot of books in the Western/Cowboy category, but if she searches just by that one category, more than 1000 books come up on the ARe site! To narrow the search, Digi selects Western Cowboy from the Category 1 drop down menu in the Advanced Search. She then selects a flame rating of 3 (she’s a mild-mannered monkey) and clicks Search Now. That limits the scope to about 200 books. Digi also prefers to read her books in Epub format, so she goes back to the Advanced Search and selects the Epub check box and clicks Search Now. The final search produces a manageable 150 options for Digi’s browsing pleasure.
Example 2
Digi’s friend Lorelai recommends a book to Digi, but she can’t remember the exact title or author’s name. She says it’s a contemporary romantic comedy with a doctor as the hero. He’s depicted on the cover in a lab coat. So, Digi goes to the Advanced Search and selects “Contemporary” as the first Category, “Romantic Comedy” as the second, then selects the “and” option because she wants the site to looks for books that are in both Contemporary and Romantic Comedy, then enters the word “Doctor” in the Tags text box. She clicks “Search Now” and PRESTO! Four books show in the search and one has a doctor in a lab coat on the cover!
Treasures await you in the wonderful world of the Advanced Search!
Filed Under: DigiMonkey eBook Tips
Tagged: buying ebooks, digimonkey, eBook tips
