“BookTok: a welcome disruptor of the status quo” – ?

[Hopscotch]

BookTok "is revolutionising bookshops and galvanising publishers.…The question is not whether BookTok will last, but what it will produce that is of lasting value….For years, self-publishing has been the gift that never quite delivered, because nobody had the time or energy to sample the estimated 1.7m volumes that are churned out each year. Many are undoubtedly bad, but some may be good in ways that would be unrecognisable to publishers today….[F]ans of BookTok are not only sampling and marketing a hitherto undiscovered part of the literary outpouring, but offering themselves up as buyers and readers. This should be cherished while it lasts.” - The Guardian (UK)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/sep/04/the-guardian-view-on-booktok-a-welcome-disruptor-of-the-status-quo

And all along I thought indie publishing was the great disruptor, rather like cheap paper taking over from expensive parchment to spread more widely new writing and new ideas.  Still think that or am I wrong as usual?

[LilyBLily]

Correct me if I am wrong, but aren't most of the BookTok people very young? My audience skews the other direction, and most young people--I include myself when I was young--don't have the interest or imagination to want to read about "old" people. So what good is BookTok likely to do for my books or for my not-so-young audience? I'd probably do better giving an in-person pitch at a senior center. (As opposed to a nursing home, senior centers attract people who are still active and able to be customers.)

BookTok will stop being a fad when my customers flock to it in great numbers, not before. That could happen, of course. But the mere fact that plenty of people still go to physical bookstores and still buy print books should tell us something about the market en masse.

[She-la-te-da]

>>BookTok "is revolutionising bookshops and galvanising publishers

I don't think so. It's causing authors grief with the read and return movement, but other than some authors getting sales for posting endless videos, I don't think there's much more to it. Give it a few months and it will be surpassed by the next big thing. Just ask Instagram.

[Crystal]

In some ways, yes. In some ways, no. A huge portion of BookTok "success" is a) people who were already very successful, b) traditionally published authors (who were already popular), and c) people paying influencers to post about them).

Sometimes a mix. Word has it Colleen Hoover's publishers paid 100s of thousands to influencers to achieve her new wave of success, but she was also already a very successful traditionally published authors.

There absolutely are authors who are finding success with their posts. And there are, no doubt, some authors who had smaller followings who exploded because BookTokers stumbled on them (though I don't have any names of people who weren't already rather successful).

But... this is picking up new readers and driving a lot of paperback sales/ sending readers to bookstores which really need the traffic.

I still don't see a great way for authors to really utilize TT for consistent success. You can get a video to go viral, maybe, but that doesn't mean your next video will do well (or sell books). I did see a small boost when I had a video do particularly well (about 10k views) but it was only a small bump, and if I did the math for time ROI, I'd be making $2/hour, at best. (Not to mention losing tons of headspace to thoughts of TT. Like all social media, it's very mentally stimulating).

[Crystal]

Like it's absolutely absurd to say TikTok is disrupting publishing and use Colleen Hoover's success as an example. Colleen Hoover was already one of the most successful romance authors in the world, with huge support from traditional publishers.