With the growing influence of #BookTok, the Frankfurt Book Fair has signed a partnership with the platform of Chinese origin.
From the German Sarah Sprinz to the Swiss Joël Dicker, more and more authors are present on an a priori improbable channel in literature: the platform of Chinese origin TikTok. The #BookTok hashtag has exploded recently with an increasing number of readers posting their reviews and chatting with writers as writers use it to promote their work. For some, it may seem counterintuitive that a platform, known for its playful little videos, encourages reading, an activity that requires a certain concentration.
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The usual format on TikTok, a short video with visual effects or music, certainly does not lend itself to traditional literary criticism. But it is much more effective for presenting “favourites” and boosting the popularity of certain works. With the growing influence of #BookTok, the Frankfurt Book Fair, the world’s largest literature fair, has for the first time made TikTok one of its partners. This trend “is very important to me“says Sarah Sprinz, author of the best-selling Dunbridge Academy, which takes place at a boarding school in Scotland. “I think this contributed to my success because I saw a lot of videos recommending my books“, she adds, during an interview with AFP at the Book Fair of the German city. It is a particularly effective channel for attracting a new audience and giving young people a taste for reading, believes the 26-year-old author.
“Impact on book sales”
“I really believe that you have to be on all the channels that allow you to read and have people read“, for his part affirmed in a video Joël Dicker, Swiss author of bestsellers, including The Truth About the Harry Quebert Affair. According to TikTok – which is owned by China-based ByteDance – #BookTok has garnered over 84 billion views. It has become “a place where books are recommended and discovered, but also where reviews are shared and fan culture is exploited“, explains Tobias Henning, manager for TikTok in Germany and Central and Eastern Europe. “It really has an impact on book sales around the world“, he notes.
never again (It Ends With Us in English), the reality fiction book by American Colleen Hoover, saw its sales explode after being praised in the TikTok community. A typical review shows a woman sobbing as she reads the novel, with music and a voiceover claiming “I have never cried so long after a book“.
Multiplier effect
“I love new adult novels and try to upload a video or two every week“, told AFP Sofia Reinbold, 17, user of TikTok, who came to the Frankfurt Motor Show after being warned about it on the platform. “I very often receive comments from subscribers who read my recommendations and end up buying the books“, she continues. Sarah Sprinz partly explains the #BookTok phenomenon by the fact that TikTok is a visual platform, allowing people to show what they think of a book. And with the lockdowns during the coronavirus pandemic, that likely accelerated the trend, she says. “Many people may have felt lonely and isolated“, she believes, stressing that the platform has made it possible to “network again and find common hobbies like reading.»
For her, there is no major contradiction between spending more time on social networks and trying to promote literature: nowadays people read in different ways, on e-books and smartphones and not only on paper works. But a book cannot be successful only thanks to social networks, she underlines. “TikTok and #BookTok are kind of multipliers and a good opportunity to recommend books“, she observes. But “there must be something more: a book must of course be good.»