Digital technologies have transformed reading experiences, from the formats we read, the hardware we use, and the ways we approach texts. The technical inability to separate ebooks from the platforms on which they are sold, distributed and accessed renders these dot.com domains important sites of paratext and the information etched into them part of the interpretive experience of the text. Building on scholarship that updates paratext theory for the digital age, this article theorizes platform paratext and examines resultant changes to the authorization, locality and functionality of paratext due to platformization. Using a grounded theory approach and drawing on a sample of 40 Amazon product pages of romance and bestselling titles, it explores how platforms’ affordances, interface design and algorithms contribute to new forms of paratext and modify and mediate author, publisher and user-generated paratext. Platform paratext on Amazon product pages demonstrate the influence of algorithms, datafication and commercial imperatives on the production and manifestation of paratext.
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“The must-read holiday romance for 2024 from the Sunday Times bestselling author—fake dating with a twist!” This is text featured in the subtitle field on the Amazon product page for the Kindle edition of Emily Henry’s romance novel Happy Place. Despite being published more than a year prior to the time of writing, an orange banner proclaiming #1Best Seller in New Adult & College Romance sits below the title and subtitle field, author name, and other information, next to the brightly colored cover image. The cover features a different subtitle to the webpage data field, reading instead “Two exes. One pact. Could this holiday change everything?” Given that one must engage with the product page in order to buy and read this Kindle ebook, the subtitle information etched here is a different but no less important paratext, inextricably part of the interpretive experience of the text. The difference between the subtitle on the cover of Happy Place and the subtitle field on the product page of this title highlights the power of platforms to shape the production and manifestation of paratext. (349)
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The dual role of paratext as metadata on publishing platforms is impacting how authors and publishers produce established modes of paratext. Many paratextual elements retain their essential content and are simply repositioned relationally to the text on product pages. The cover, for instance, is reduced in size, appearing primarily as a thumbnail that can be clicked on and enlarged to the approximate dimensions of readers’ screens, but otherwise it tends to be an accurate reflection of the cover of the edition presented. Other paratexts, however, are largely modified in form, including the subtitle and description of titles. These modifications are the result of two intertwined and seemingly contradictory platform imperatives. The first is the relative rigidity of the available data fields wherein authors and publishers can input information. These fields are more or less standardized across Amazon product pages, from books to pet toys to groceries. The second imperative, though, is the relative flexibility of some of these data fields. While the title field, for instance, must reflect the title of the book according to its ISBN and cannot be changed after publication, the subtitle and description fields can include almost any information, which has resulted in publishers including paratext that does not otherwise have specified data fields. The editability of the subtitle and description fields makes them heuristic places to update paratextual information, often with the intent of recommending the title, and it has resulted in publishers and authors, particularly those working in fiction, using the subtitle field in more creative and capricious ways. (362)
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