Of the many ways the publishing industry strives to remain relevant, BookTok is the most egregious example. The big companies have unleashed themselves on this subcommunity of the social-media giant TikTok like embarrassing dads at a wedding, with the idea they can promote their hottest authors to a demographic they feared had stopped reading altogether.
It is a nice idea, in theory, and reports suggest that companies such as HarperCollins and Random House are on to a good thing. A 2022 poll conducted by the Publishers Association found over half of young readers (16-25-year-olds) credited BookTok with helping them discover a love of reading. In 2022, it was estimated the platform was responsible for 200 million hard-copy sales in the US alone (according to the data sourcing company Bookscan).
Of course, such statistics should provide a reason to rejoice - yet I am wary of writing an encomium. Reports into the types of books being sold show it is your more consumable, easily marketable title that benefits from BookTok. Young adult fiction is very popular, and so are romantic novels. The virtues of biographies and other non-fiction titles are less likely to be extolled by young influencers, while those classics which have been promoted - Wuthering Heights and The Great Gatsby have both become “TikTok sensations” - hardly need a leg-up in terms of profile.
However, I believe existentially, publishers should not be going anywhere near BookTok because, ultimately, it is anathema to a love of reading. By hooking up with influencers and rewarding positive reviews with further free copies and merchandise, publishers are dancing with the devil. These people are promoting books as a lifestyle, as aspirational accoutrements: were you to follow all their recommendations about buying every trendy new hardback and arranging them in beautiful style so you can post your own “content”, it could become fairly expensive.
The recommendations themselves always seem to verge on the performative, gushing praise with little rigour (any book that makes someone cry for an entire weekend is particularly likely to attain kudos). Certainly the books that have thrived as a result appear to be the sort that might rot your brain. Colleen Hoover’s It Ends With Us - of which the film adaptation is being released in cinemas this weekend - has been raved about on BookTok, yet several of my colleagues assure me it’s terrible.
The other problem is social media is, as we all know by now, pernicious. I am not saying BookTok sets out to be this way - indeed, many people would argue it is the safest of spaces. But it does suggest a certain amount of peer pressure, enforcing the idea you are expected to adore a certain title.
As a child, I was a bit of a geek with low self-esteem who loved books because they felt like my own little secret. The very nature of BookTok would have been a nightmare to me. I feel like book publishers need to remember the essence of what they do. A love of literature is one thing. A love of self-promotion is quite another.
