What is BookTok?

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BookTok is the name given to a community of book lovers on TikTok who are known for sharing book recommendations, their latest book hauls, reaction videos to recent reads, and reading challenges. The community reads are generally dominated by young adult fiction, fantasy, and romance.

Where did BookTok come from?

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Building off the back of GoodReads and BookTube, is the birth of BookTok. This growing corner of the internet was initially fuelled by Lockdown. Not only were we looking for new ways to keep busy, but when people were thrown into a world of uncertainty, books were able to offer a convenient form of escapism that so many craved. The result, was a new generation of readers emerged. TikTok was already popular pre-pandemic but as soon as we were stuck indoors, usage of the social media platform soared to new heights. These new book lovers quickly found their home on TikTok.

10 BookTok influencers to Know - ranked by follower count:

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Macro-Influencers

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@madeline_pendleton 1.8M followers, 149.7M likes

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@aymansbooks 943.2K followers, 141.6M likes

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@thebooksiveloved 530K followers, 33.1M likes

@jack_edwards 651.3K, 35.6M likes

Mid-Tier Influencers

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@literary_delight 36.7K followers, 1.1M likes

@dashofday 31.1K followers, 167.8K likes

@bcemercer 22.3K followers, 1.6M likes

Micro-Influencers

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@jackie_recommends 13.5K followers, 219.5K likes‍

@nashvillebookgirl 10.2K followers, 476.1K

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@fndingmyzck 6,761 followers, 142.4K likes

How has BookTok influenced the publishing industry?

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Of course, book retailers like Barnes and Noble have embraced the rise of booktok creating dedicated sections in their stores for book recommendations from TikTok influencers and Waterstones who have hosted ‘BookTok festivals’ for the virtual book sphere to meet IRL. Celebrities have also jumped on the bandwagon, starting their own virtual book clubs - Reese Witherspoon, Mindy Kaling, Dua Lipa, Emma Watson, Sarah Jessica Parker…to name a few.

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They’ve also been at the helm of changing tastes. In the publishing industry a “trope” is known to be used negatively to describe clichés and overused stereotypes but the book community on TikTok have reclaimed the term and they have become more than a guilty pleasure. By definition the reader might already know what will happen but the interest is in how the author makes it happen. The result is demand has surged for book titles which were once seen as the “fast food” of the publishing industry.

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BookTok has also helped authors catapult to stardom. The hashtag #ColleenHoover for example, now has over 3 billion views on TikTok driven by teary-eyed reaction videos to the book It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover. And the book They Both Die at the End by Adam Silvera, which was first published over six years ago, only recently saw a boom in sales to 300,000+ units after going viral on TikTok.

One thing is for sure, reading in the age of social media is not just a hobby, from sharing colour-coded bookshelves to cosy reading rooms on a rainy day - it has become a lifestyle and an aesthetic.

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Image Credit: Shayna Douglas