March 31, 2023
When you are on the social media app TikTok you will come across many different communities. The TikTok communities are places where creators can interact with each other about their shared interests.
With over 117.8 billion views on the hashtag, #BookTok is one of the most popular communities on the platform. Creators share their love of reading, writing, and just literature in general. Videos might include book and author recommendations, book reviews, or book hauls.
Many books have been pushed out of obscurity because of BookTok. One example being One of Us Is Lying by Karen McManus. McManus published the book in 2014, and while it was successful by 2020 it was not very popular. People noticed that the book was rising on the teen best seller list, and it was all due to a TikTok creator making a video talking about how great the book was, and prompting it to have huge sales. I even read this book because of the TikTok review, and I can say that it is very good.
BookTok has caused many authors and publishing companies to rethink their marketing strategies. When an author publishes a new book, if they are aiming for a young adult audience, they make videos about it on TikTok. Sometimes they may pay #BookTok creators to talk about their book, these are called sponsorships.
Most of the popular books on BookTok are young adult fiction, fantasy, and romance. BookTok books that I recommend are as follows: the series The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, The Summer I Turned Pretty by Jenny Han, To All The Boys I loved Before by Jenny Han, Crazy Rich Asians by Kevin Kwan, and Legend by Marie Lu.
With the rise of #BookTok there has also been a rise in book sales. It was reported that book sales were up by 9% in 2021.
Because #BookTok is very popular there will of course be people who have negative opinions on it. Some say it just promotes badly written and basic books. However, #BookTok is divided into sub-communities, so not every book is the same, and it explores many different genres. Everyone interprets a book’s writing differently. Some may see a book’s writing as good while others might see it as bad. No matter if people’s opinions are good or bad #BookTok has managed to stay relevant for over three years and it is safe to say that it is not going anywhere anytime soon.
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