Fran Di Fazio
As a thriving digital subculture, BookTok is changing the way books are marketed to younger audiences. While critics object that the BookTok phenomenon reduces literature to a matter of aesthetics, it also offers insights into how we consume media and culture.
BookTok is influencing the reading habits of a new generation of readers. The #BookTok hashtag, which groups together all content focused on books and literature on TikTok, has surpassed 157 billion views. This marks a dramatic increase from a year ago when the reported view count was 65.8 billion.
The trend has visibly impacted the real-world book market. It has become standard practice for bookshops to display BookTok-viral books on dedicated shelves. BookTok-related tags have also entered readers’ everyday vocabulary, sometimes replacing more traditional genre labels in book discourse.
@jasf4iry
Due to its influence, BookTok currently represents a reality that publishers must embrace, particularly when marketing books to young audiences.
A REDUCTIVE TREND?
As confirmed by user demographics data, TikTok is the quintessentially Gen-Z social media platform. It relies mostly on user-generated content, which means that its young user base both consumes and produces content in correspondence with trending topics.
The ability to interact with posts through commenting, reposting and sharing means that popular videos can go viral quickly. Therefore, user endorsement is crucial in dictating trend patterns. This feature can be taken advantage of for marketing purposes, as product recommendations spread fast throughout online communities.
Other defining qualities of TikTok are its algorithm-driven feed and its short-form content, with videos ranging from 15 seconds to three minutes in length. These aspects have attracted criticism against BookTok for being shallow and “reductive” in its content, showing a limited range of titles based on superficial aesthetic grounds.
BOOKTOK’S PLACE IN THE LITERARY MARKET
A contempt for commercial literature drives some of these critiques. Although books today exist primarily as objects of consumption, they maintain an element of elitism due to the historical exclusivity of literature for the wealthy and literate.
“Today, as global literacy rates are the highest they’ve ever been, literature is first and foremost a profitable market.”
In fact, the exclusive relationship between reading and cultural elitism stopped being a reality at least from early-modern times. In Europe, a series of technological innovations, from moveable type printing in the 1450s to the industrial revolution, made publishing progressively easier and cheaper. Today, as global literacy rates are the highest they’ve ever been, literature is first and foremost a profitable market.
It is no surprise, then, that book consumption follows marketing logic. Especially among children and teenagers, “the bookworm” is someone who is stereotypically intelligent but introverted. We should strive to abandon these stereotypes and instead view reading for pleasure as an activity accessible to everyone. BookTok plays a key role in achieving this, through making a wide range of book recommendations available to all.
MARKETING AND PERSONAL BRANDING ON BOOKTOK
“Users can incorporate their book choices into an overall effort to build up their self-image or personal brand.”
BookTok marketing has taken on its own unique characteristics. In the past, books were marketed chiefly according to genre. Now, the BookTok community prefers more general labels that capture the book’s mood. Tags such as #SadGirl, #DarkAcademia and #OldMoney are used to label reading preferences easily. Users can thus incorporate their book choices into an overall effort to build up their self-image.
Moreover, these tags group together books that differ widely in terms of authorship, time of publication, genre, and literary intent. For example, a TikTok tagged #SadGirlBooks can encompass anything from modern classics such as Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar to Sally Rooney’s digital-age Millennial novels.
@myreadsbooks this sound is too good #sadgirlbookrecs #sadgirlbooks #thebelljar #booktok #bookrecommendations
Such variety has a positive impact on attitudes towards culture and literature. By including both classics and contemporary novels under the same categories, BookTok creators show that it’s possible to enjoy both in the modern age. In the long run, younger generations of readers might come to embrace a more diverse range of literature as a result.
SO, IS BOOKTOK A GOOD INFLUENCE?
As a mode of self-expression and a marketing strategy at the same time, BookTok isn’t inherently good or bad.
One of the most valid criticisms of BookTok is that the algorithm-driven feed tends to bury more original titles under the noise of more mainstream literature. This upholds the existing power imbalances in the publishing industry, which mirror societal structures of privilege and marginalisation.
“A conscious effort to diversify our content sources as users could actually broaden our perspective.”
However, these are systemic issues that no improved marketing model can fix. On the other hand, a conscious effort to diversify our content sources as users could actually broaden our perspective. In fact, TikTok’s immense user-driven platform offers much more diversity than traditional media’s filtered content.
Another concern is the potential for the platform to feed potentially harmful content to younger users, such as age-inappropriate books or stories romanticising abusive relationships. However, education is not the responsibility of the literary market. Despite its association with culture and knowledge, many books exist simply for pleasure.
For users, BookTok may best be utilised as a tool to filter reading recommendations according to personal preferences. Like every generation of readers, BookTok users will develop their own literary tastes.
Either way, it’s clear that traditional literary marketing strategies are making way for the less restrictive user-generated labels of BookTok. Recognising the user’s preferences on a more personal level can only contribute towards encouraging positive reading habits.
READ MORE:
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HOW BOOKTOK IS IMPACTING YA FICTION ON THE BESTSELLER CHARTS
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HAPPY PLACE BY EMILY HENRY IS MY BOOK OF THE SUMMER
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RE-LEARNING HOW TO READ FOR LEISURE
Featured image courtesy of Florencia Viadana on Unsplash. Image license found
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Fran Di Fazio
Fran is a journalist with bylines in community news media and national magazines and a Twitter Editor at Empoword Journalism. They aim to uplift voices from marginalised and underprivileged communities through their work. They're a bookworm, a nature-lover and a chaotic good.