In today’s society, social media has been playing a key role in people’s lives. Almost everyone uses it to keep up with the latest information and share about their own lives. Along with memes and makeup tutorials, our online home is also a key component in one industry: books.
In the digital age, the publishing industry has had much publicity on social media. The most popular form of this is BookTok, a term used to refer to the community on TikTok of book lovers and writing theorists. BookTok has become one of the most popular communities on the internet- there are almost 1.6 billion people active, over 239 billion views of “booktoks”, and 19 million posts to date, according to TikTok’s official statistics. The BookTok community mostly posts reactions, reviews, and recommendations to/for various books, and authors may use it to promote their own work. Many variations have arisen due to BookTok’s impacts, including Bookstagram (a reading-focused community on Instagram) and book reviews on Youtube.
But with books being a huge focus in the online world, we start to wonder one thing: how does social media actually affect the publishing industry- and it is actually beneficial, or harmful, for authors and readers?
One key impact of BookTok and similar online communities is the amount of popularity it can bring to books- which ultimately brings in more money toward authors. According to an article on The Week, which is a news site, from mid-2020 to late 2021, book sales have reached an almost 20 year peak, and book sales were up 9% from the previous year, with 825 million books sold in total, which was the highest reported sale count since 2004 that was reported by NPD BookScan, which tracks yearly book sales.Some individual books had sale increases of 1000% or more. It’s clear that social media has played a massive role in this sales increase, as 2020-2021 were key years for BookTok’s rise in popularity.
Another benefit of social media is how it can help promote lesser known authors and books- and result in resurgence for older books. A large fraction of viral books were not published in the year that they became popular- they were originally published a few years before. These books were lesser known in their original year of publication, but BookTok helped them gain popularity and get on the bestseller lists. Some of these books have even become popular enough to get surprise sequels or prequels. Plus, BookTok helps create a sense of community for book lovers- online, hundreds of people who are far apart are able to discuss favorite books and connect with others despite the long distance.
Despite the benefits of social media for promoting books, there are also some flaws with this trend. The largest issue is also about how books become more popular through social media- when a book becomes popular enough, it can soon become overhyped. When you actually do some research about popular books on BookTok, you will find that the top picks are always the same 20 or so books that never seem to slow down their popularity, with a handful of books that have a few weeks of primetime but don’t gain the same level of popularity as the bigger hits. This is made exceptionally clear through social media’s algorithm and how it gives recommendations on what posts to look at.
For example, let’s say that you watch a TikTok video where someone reviews a popular book. You leave a “like” on the video, and the algorithm thinks that you will like similar videos featuring the same book. So next time you are on TikTok, your For You Page shows multiple videos with the same book in it. This can result in being exposed to the same books without gaining exposure to some more underrated picks, just because of the massive popularity of bigger titles. Popularity of books may also lead to exaggerations about one’s opinion on a book, as people may be afraid of being in the minority on a book’s opinion.
Another thing people don’t realize about BookTok is how it prioritizes reading as much as possible. Browsing through TikTok will reveal hundreds of videos about how to improve your reading speed and finish 100 books in a year. In one notable example that I read about, the maker of the video (I forgot the name of the person) suggested that instead of reading long, hard to understand books, to focus on reading short books including picture books. These kinds of videos imply that reading isn’t just enjoying the story- it’s also about getting the most books done before anyone else can. This can prevent people from really getting involved in books in order to get them finished quickly.
Overall, is social media truly a benefit toward readers and publishers? It ultimately has its perks- as it’s definitely here to stay. But when it comes to the actual content and ideals, it might be time to reconsider what’s trending on there.
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