thread Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors? in Orders, Menu Items, Catalog & Fulfilment

Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors?

Pentagonlibrary — Sat, 20 Sep 2025 11:55:51 GMT

Hello,

I am new to the community and I'm in the process of setting up an online only bookstore. I would like customers to be able to search my books by author, but I don't know how to best assign the author's last name to the item. I would appreciate any guidance on whether to use the option, attribute, or modifier field to enter the author's name.

I tried entering "Author" for Option Name 1 and the actual author's name "Smith" for Option Value 1, but this resulted in an error (below) when uploading my excel file. I don't understand what to do since I have nothing in any of the "Variation Name" fields. There may be a better way to assign an author to an item, please help.

All item variations that include option sets must be unique. The variation in row 4 already exists in your library. Update the variation or remove it from the file.

Thank you for your help.

Re: Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors?

Valentina — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 21:58:23 GMT

Before diving in here with you, I wanted to point you to this thread where @isabelle provided a really thorough explanation of the ways in which modifiers are different from variations/options.

However, it doesn't sound like modifiers or variations/options are the best way to include authors' names so that they are searchable, @Pentagonlibrary. I did a quick search online to see how other booksellers have set up their Square Online websites, and the most common setup is to include the authors' names in the item title:

I hope this helps! ✨

Re: Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors?

Pentagonlibrary — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 23:30:29 GMT

Wow Valentina,

Thank you for the response. This is very helpful. By the way, that's a great book you selected as an example. We have two copies of that at the house.

Re: Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors?

Valentina — Wed, 18 Nov 2020 23:40:22 GMT

I'm so glad this was helpful, @Pentagonlibrary ✨

Aw, this book definitely holds a special place in my heart - it was an integral part of my childhood! 🌕

Re: Should I use options, attributes, or a modifier for book authors?

UnionRiverBook — Tue, 13 Dec 2022 22:32:14 GMT

As far as I can tell there is no way to upload a custom field that can be used for Authors. Using the "Custom field" has a hard limit of 255 options. We've considered re-purposing the sku field to use for Author, but then we lose sku information. There are no viable workarounds that I can find here or in the various facebook groups, or even stack exchange.