The Risks and Rewards of BookTok
The internet has mastered the art of forming communities. For years, people have flocked to social media in search of common ground or mutual understanding, and there is no better example of this than BookTok.
BookTok is the name given to the corner of TikTok dedicated to discussing, recommending and reviewing books. The cultural impact of what is essentially the world’s biggest book club is hard to scope — typical of anything with an online nature — but to put it into context, a Berkeley Economic review revealed that authors with prominent BookTok followings were responsible for over $760 million of book sales in 2022. In addition, ‘BookTok book’ has almost become its own genre, with tables dedicated to titles that have found fame in this sphere positioned front and centre in most bookshops. The rise of literature discourse online has reshaped not only the societal perceptions of reading but also the way the publishing industry operates as a whole.
Despite BookTok’s evident impact on the literary economy, the platform has received its fair share of hate. A common criticism surrounding BookTok classics — such as Icebreaker by Hannah Grace, The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazelwood or the entirety of Colleen Hoover’s catalogue — is that they lack literary merit. This particular criticism triggers a head-first dive into the argument surrounding what it is exactly that makes a book ‘good’ — who gets to decide whether a book has merit or not? How do we measure credibility? Do we need to accept that not every book is going to be a life-changing piece of literature?
It is also interesting to note that the BookTok space is primarily occupied by young women recommending romance books, and based on the historic dismissal of both women and the things that they enjoy, it is possible that regardless of statistical evidence, the potential of BookTok has already been widely written off. This ‘potential’ in question includes increasing the monetary value of the publishing industry, encouraging people to start reading it and acting as a catalyst for countless author’s careers. It would be unjust to overlook the positivity forged from this community. However, there is something to be said about the reading culture that BookTok has fostered.
At the end of the day, BookTok is a form of marketing. The motive for most short-form content is money; the reality of a mindless social media scroll is that you are probably being sold something and in this case, that ‘thing’ is books. Literature is being further monopolised by influencers (or, as many prefer to be called, content creators) who have crafted entire careers around talking about what they are reading online. Being a reader has become a complete aesthetic and while this isn’t an inherently bad thing, it is worth questioning the implications of this for everyone involved.
Books are being bought in unnecessary volumes and at an unsustainable rate — there is an evident overconsumption of books, comparable to fast fashion. The average ‘book haul’ online includes 20+ titles at a time and it is normalised to have 200 unread books on a personal shelf which works in tandem with the short-lived nature of trends. When a book dominates online discourse, everyone buys it and loves it for a couple of weeks, until something better inevitably comes along and the novel becomes the newest ghost of the BookTok graveyard. If a book by some miracle survives this process, then it will eventually be almost too popular and a complete 180 will occur, triggering an unrepairable fall from grace. Given this hostile climate, it is hard to imagine anything from this time thriving into a classic later down the line.
The competitive edge that book-oriented social media has given reading also contributes to this lightning-fast turnaround of literature. 24-hour reading challenges, monthly reading wrap-ups, Goodreads goals and ‘What I read in a week’ videos are all examples of content that pushes the message of quantity over quality. Similar to how a makeup influencer with undisclosed cosmetic procedures could skew their viewer’s sense of reality, many consumers of book-related content fail to grasp that the people they are watching are reading for a living; it is not attainable for the ‘normal’ reader to dedicate 24 hours to reading straight. This is rarely pointed out by the influencers themselves.
For a lot of people, there is an undeniable allure to being perceived as a ‘reader’ and the idea of reading has arguably become more desirable than the act of reading itself. The concept of the ‘reading aesthetic’ isn’t a new thing, 2010s Tumblr and Pinterest had this ground covered before BookTok entered the scene. However, BookTok has elevated this to a whole new level through videos capturing the aesthetic of individual books, outfits based on books and the rise of ‘bookish’ merch. The demand for videos of people mysteriously reading in public is higher than you would think. There is a definite performative streak at play that is saturating the BookTok community with somewhat misguided content.
BookTok is a lifeline for a lot of people. It provides a platform for the book lovers and a classroom for the book-curious. Despite the overwhelming majority of this community leading with pure intentions, the subconscious influence of online content is beginning to raise suspicions. Regularly watching people who consume five books a week and purchase every book that crosses their algorithm is inevitably going to result in unrealistic expectations. It is important to keep your head above the BookTok waters.