Need to find a book on architectural art - your code will be Art; Architecture to create AM. Break this down to theory, and it becomes AMA. A super categorising tool for publishers, booksellers and distributors.
In the eBook age, the BIC codes are still useful for non-fiction. A search online at Waterstones using 'art, architecture, theory' will bring up relevant titles.
But with fiction, the BIC code system is no longer adequate.
Publishers putting out a new title that is 'historical fiction' must still use the same codes that we used for print. As a result, F is fiction; FV is 'historic fiction'. For 'historic mysteries' use FFH; for 'historic adventures' use FJH; for 'historic romance' use FFH.
Where does this leave the Roman romp as opposed to the Tudor tale or the World War I family saga? All could fall into the same category of FV and FFH, which means the consumer looking for historic romance set in a particular era, has to wade through hundreds of online pages before finding a book that might interest her - wading through page after page of book cover jpegs.
I think it is time for eBook retailers to use keywords for fiction - just like we do in any online search. The keywords could be scanned against the synopsis that publishers lodge with Nielsen. (sorry, I know scanned is the wrong word - but I'm not techy enough to know the verb for algorithms).
I love the theory for BIC codes, and they are wonderful for fiction. But they are no longer sufficient for online fiction.
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