TikTok is Changing the Book World for the Better

We can criticise it all we like, but this app is helping to create a new generation of readers

If I open up TikTok now, it will tell me that #BookTok has over 45.5 billion views. That’s a lot of watching videos about books. Whether it’s reviews, monthly wrap-ups or vlogs of people going book shopping, this internet niche has gained a lot of attention in the last few years.

But it’s not only online that BookTok has an influence; it’s even changing physical bookshops. Some bookshops even have entire sections and displays devoted to TikTok books along the lines of Coleen Hoover, Taylor Jenkins Reed or Ali Hazlewood.

In my experience, if a large group of giggling girls come into my bookshop, they will always be after one of the three. I thought it was problematic for a while, but after many months of witnessing these TikTok book trends, I’ve gained some perspective.

We can sneer at TikTok all we like, but the reality is, it’s creating a whole new generation of readers.

The problem with BookTok as a bookseller

Being a bookseller, you want to be able to recommend unique reads to a variety of different customers as it’s part of the joy of the job. When you have the same book requested one after the other, it can feel as if you’re whole job is a deja vu moment.

Part of me used to get frustrated and sad that everybody was after the same set of books, as it annoyed me that other amazing reads weren’t getting the attention they deserved. Every time I sell a Colleen Hoover, part of my heart sinks because I wish they would support a lesser-known author who needs the royalties.

But then I realised that TikTok would eventually open them up to other authors, and the most important thing was that it was getting them reading in the first place. Somehow, social media has encouraged a generation of readers to put down their phones and pick up a physical book, and that’s pretty special.

How TikTok is encouraging a generation of readers and why it’s important

Aside from the glowy, aesthetically pleasing videos of people browsing through bookshops, Book Tok is also responsible for being home to recommendation videos and angry or boasting reviews of books that people have read and want to share with the world. In short, these bite-sized videos provide a wealth of knowledge to a new generation of readers — and importantly — demonstrate an excitement about books.

Go back ten years, and you’ll be able to see all of the headlines that heralded the end of the physical book due to the rise of the internet, social media and the Kindle. News commentators at the time were predicting the end of physical book shops, and so was the impact of the pandemic. But, in fact, they’ve come back even stronger than before. The number of independent bookshops in the UK and Ireland grew in 2021 for the fifth consecutive year — therefore — the physical book isn’t going to give up easily.

BookTok is yet another example of the reading renaissance and how it is gripping a whole new generation of readers who have grown up on the internet when books weren’t their only form of entertainment. Despite being frustrated at times that it tends to recycle the same authors and genres, it encourages reading, which is imperative. TikTok has become home to a new passion for books and stories and changed the bookselling world as a result.

BookTok is changing the physicality of bookshops and the industry

Similar to other industries and products, TikTok has recently become a central marketing tool for bookshops. Booksellers and owners of bookshops can tap into this popular and well-visited world of BookTok by using the associated hashtags and will get noticed. By advertising their shop and the books they have on offer, they can appeal to a whole new audience they didn’t have before.

You could even go as far to say that TikTok is contributing towards keeping physical bookshops alive. It’s a convenient and powerful marketing tool that readers and other social media users alike have in the back of their pockets. Bookshops can use it to draw attention to their existence and showcase what they have on offer. It draws people in.

BookTok has made certain books incredibly popular. Those include (but are not restricted to)

• It Ends with Us by Colleen Hoover
• The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reed
• The Love Hypothesis by Ali Hazlewood
• The Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller
• The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

This has meant bookshops have had to alter their displays to suit the increased demands for specific titles. In my experience, because of the sheer volume of customers who come in requesting these groups of titles, it makes sense to have a display for them and a place to point to when directing customers.

It may just be an app, but TikTok is working its influence to change the physicality of bookshops and alter a new generation’s appreciation of reading. We can criticise it and feel frustrated with it all we like, but we have to face the facts. It is helping to support bookshops and forge a new generation of readers.

TikTok is managing to do something very clever. Using social media, it is encouraging people to combine the digital and physical world in a way that’s never been seen before. Videos on BookTok encourage viewers to pick up books that have been recommended to them by watching a video online, and some may even post reviews of them.

It is not only changing reading habits and making readers out of those who have never picked up a book before, but altering the physicality of bookshops as they try and adjust to the growing demand for a whole new category of books that fly off the shelves. So love it or hate it, you have to respect it for creating a whole new generation of readers.

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