{"id":8343,"date":"2023-05-13T20:40:20","date_gmt":"2023-05-14T00:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/investing\/the-booktok-group-on-tiktok-attracted-new-readers-they-want-it-to-stay\/"},"modified":"2023-05-13T20:40:20","modified_gmt":"2023-05-14T00:40:20","slug":"the-booktok-group-on-tiktok-attracted-new-readers-they-want-it-to-stay","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ifintechworld.com\/?p=8343","title":{"rendered":"The BookTok Group on TikTok Attracted New Readers. They Want It to Stay."},"content":{"rendered":"

Carissa Broadbent is an author from Rhode Island who enjoys writing about magic and kissing. In December, the author of The Serpent and the Wings of Night <\/em>and Daughter of No Worlds <\/em>noticed a sudden rise in her book sales\u2014and in her following on social media.<\/p>\n

Behind the surge: Her work was viewed and discussed on BookTok, a community on TikTok, the popular social-media app owned by Beijing-based ByteDance. \u201cI do very little paid advertising and I put, like, no thought into it. But I don\u2019t need to because word-of-mouth has really kept my series\u2014both of them\u2014afloat,\u201d Broadbent says.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

Now, TikTok is at risk of being banned in the U.S. as politicians in both major parties voice concerns that the app is collecting data about its users that could be used by the Chinese government. If a ban goes through, users who are a part of the BookTok community will no longer have the platform to share their favorite books or talk about popular authors.\u00a0<\/p>\n

TikTok was the most downloaded app in the U.S. in 2022, according to Business of Apps. The hashtag #BookTok has over 127 billion views on the app. The rise in popularity came in early 2020, when pandemic lockdowns forced people to stay home. Many young people turned to reading and posting 60-second to three-minute videos about their favorite books and authors on TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Broadbent published her newest book, The Ashes and the Star-Cursed King<\/em>, on April 14. That same day, the book was the No. 1 seller on the
\n Amazon
\n Kindle Store and was the No. 3 Wall Street Journal<\/em>\u00a0seller in fiction ebooks. As of May 2, #CarissaBroadbent had close to 14 million views on TikTok.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In March, TikTok Chief Executive Shou Zi Chew talked up the value of BookTok in his testimony before Congress. \u201cI\u2019ve had people telling me that they are reading more because of BookTok, so there is a lot of good, and joy, and positive, that can be derived from the TikTok experience,\u201d Chew said.<\/p>\n

A TikTok ban poses a risk for booksellers and authors who have seen a surge in sales and income because of the app. Research firm Circana says TikTok is the leading driver for books, and 80% of BookTok users are 34 years old and younger.<\/p>\n

According to data analysis site NPD Group, in the 52 weeks ended Nov. 5, 2022, sales of young adult print books in the U.S. increased over 50% compared with 2019. \u201cThe young adult category has continued its growth trend in 2022,\u201d wrote Kristen McLean, books industry analyst for NPD. \u201cGrowth has been driven by a variety of authors and series, which were supported by BookTok and word-of-mouth discovery.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cPart of the impact TikTok has on books is tied directly to the BookTok hashtag blooming in the midst of the pandemic,\u201d says Matthew Quint, director of the center on global brand leadership at Columbia Business School. He says that during the pandemic, people had more discretionary income as stimulus checks rolled in, allowing them to explore new areas of entertainment.<\/p>\n

Elise Kova has written and published more than 20 books, including A Deal with the Elf King <\/em>and Air Awakens. <\/em>Near the end of 2020, Kova noticed that Air Awakens <\/em>shot up in sales to the top 700 best-sellers list on the Kindle store. She thought that was strange: The book\u00a0<\/em>was published in 2015.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you see that as an author, you\u2019re going, OK, what happened? Because I\u2019m not running a sale. I\u2019m not running any kind of promotions. I didn\u2019t do anything. And then I came across a video on TikTok, and that\u2019s what it was,\u201d Kova says, <\/em>referring to a video giving a positive review of the book. \u201cI think that was the first moment that I kind of realized the power of the platform.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/figure><\/div>\n

Shares of
\n Bloomsbury Publishing
\n (ticker: BMY), an independent publishing house that trades on the London Stock Exchange, have more than doubled since March 2020, as the company has seen sales of its books such as A Court of Thorns and Roses <\/em>and Song of Achilles <\/em>jump in popularity because of TikTok. The company\u2019s revenue grew 40% from 2020 to 2022.<\/p>\n

\u201cSince mid-2020, TikTok has been one of the driving forces of an unprecedented surge in Consumer book sales,\u201d Bloomsbury said in the company\u2019s 2022 annual report, adding that the platform has engaged \u201can exciting new generation of readers.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

A TikTok ban would be a blow to not just to authors and publishers, but to social-media influencers. Ayman, 22, runs the TikTok account \u201cAymansbooks,\u201d with more than 943,000 followers. She created her account in early 2020, and has gained her large following by posting short videos about different books. She also gets paid by publishers, earning $2,000 or more for each sponsored video. That helped her get through college, and even buy a car.<\/p>\n

Ayman says it\u2019s \u201cscary\u201d that the app could go away at any time, and is preparing to move to other social-media platforms so she can continue what has become a full-time job.<\/p>\n

Barnes & Noble, which is opening 30 stores this year, devotes precious upfront space to promote books mentioned at #BookTok. \u201cTikTok was, and is, a way for people to discover what reading is, but that\u2019s not why people keep reading,\u201d says Shannon DeVito, senior director of book strategy and customer experience at Barnes & Noble. <\/em>\u201cI think it was a way for people who hadn\u2019t normally read, or were rediscovering their love of it, or finding it for the first time in their life, to realize how awesome reading is.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Broadbent and Kova think the conversations on BookTok about reading will migrate to
\n Meta Platforms
\n \u2019 (META) Facebook,
\n Alphabet\u2019s<\/span>
\n (GOOGL) YouTube, Amazon.com\u2019s (AMZN) Goodreads, or other places if TikTok goes away. Whether those platforms could take the place of BookTok is another question.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know that if TikTok went away tomorrow, people would not just stop talking about books. I like to believe that Instagram Reels would kind of fill in that space and people would talk elsewhere,\u201d Broadbent says. \u201cBut it would be a shame to lose a platform that has so readily enabled people to enthusiastically and organically connect about books.\u201d<\/p>\n

Write to Angela Palumbo at angela.palumbo@dowjones.com<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n

Read the full article here<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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