Publishers Association says so called “BookTok” has helped book sales hit a record high.
TikTok is home to many different fan bases and one can find videos and dedicated communities around almost anything. People love sharing their opinions and views on almost anything but one of the more unexpected bonuses of the whole TikTok phenomenon is that “BookTok”, people sharing their favourite books, is now affecting the UK’s book sales.
Total book sales rose to £6.7bn last year, up 5%. While digital sales were down 1%, audio downloads increased by 14%. Genres that interested readers in particular were fiction, children’s and young adult. A lot of books also experienced a renaissance of sorts with readers discovering books released years before through TikTok.
Books with dramatic, unexpected twists and particularly emotional narratives seem to interest young readers, with titles such as We Were Liars and They Both Die at the End topping charts.
According to Emilie Marneur from publisher Bonnier, TikTok trends helped push another two of the publisher’s titles that were previously released into the top 50 young adult bestsellers list last year.
