Newbie here!

I've started tagging my books: I click on the "+tag" button, type the first few letters of the tag I want, and a list pops up. Generally, I want to choose several items off that list (such as horse, horses, horse care, horseback riding), but it only lets me choose one at a time. So I have to repeat the whole process for each tag.

Is there a better way?

You can make up your own tags.

True-- but is there any way to type in more than one at a time? Also, if my tags don't match the tags in the system, it pretty much defeats my purpose: for my books to be more easily found.

oic... I don't know of any shortcuts.  I'm not sure how valuable it is to advertize via tags?  I know I don't look for books that way.

Do you know about the Book Bazaae forum.  http://www.paperbackswap.com/forum/topic.php?t=39715 You can advertize your bookshelf there.  Though many ppl are there looking for deals you might find some specifically interested in horse books (for example).

That is the actual purpose of Tags, so that someone looking for something (like horse care) will be able to click a Tag they like and see a good list of books with that Tag. Unforunately the implementation of Tags has been so bumpy I don't think a lot of people use them.

As for a short cut, I haven't found one. I do a fair amount of tagging and I have tried to find a quicker way, but no luck so far. 

I use tags to find books all the time, either from the Club Tag Cloud, or ones that I stumble upon.  Once more tags are being used, the site will offer searchable tags, which will be awesome.  I had sent feedback requesting this and that was the response I got.

I wonder if they will also implement a more efficient way of tagging?