BookTok wins FutureBook Person of the Year award

BookTok has been named FutureBook’s Person of the Year. The accolade, awarded as part of the FutureBook Conference, is for people making a real difference in the book business through their actions and advocacy. In a departure from tradition, this year the award recognises not just one individual but those who use the social media platform TikTok to support books and authors, and whose influence over book sales has grown exponentially over the year.

Commonly known as the “last safe place on the internet”, BookTok is a global subculture on TikTok. Using #booktok, users have created a community where they share book recommendations, reactions and reviews in short 15-second, to longer three to 10-minute, videos. These videos, which gain thousands of views, have created a new marketing opportunity for publishers while galvanising backlist sales for authors such as Colleen Hoover and Adam Silvera.

Writing in June 2021, Alison Flood at the Guardian dubbed the renewed success of Silvera’s They Both Die at the End (Simon & Schuster), originally published in 2017, as the “BookTok effect”—a term neatly describing how TikTok videos translate to bestselling chart positions and significant sales boosts.

“TikTok made me buy it”, a trend on the platform, is helping fuel the “BookTok effect”. Earlier this year, Nielsen attributed £2.2m in sales from January to April 2022 to this tag, but now reckons 7.1 million books have been sold, worth more than £50m. Waterstones boss James Daunt likened the BookTok impact as equivalent to Harry Potter, when customers would queue out of the door to get their hands on new publications.

To engage with publishers and the BookTok community, TikTok launched an online book club in July 2022 (#BookClub). Each month five users—BookTok Laureates—produce content around a selected book and co-host a discussion at the end of the month. October’s pick, NoViolet Bulawayo’s Glory (Chatto & Windus), was reviewed by the five members: Jack Edwards, Eden Reid, Sarel Madzebra, Ben Mercer and Alicia Li. Other notable BookTokkers include Kate  Wilson (@kateslibrary, 309,200 followers); Ayman Chaudhary (@aymansbooks, 860,100); and Emily Russell (@emilymiahreads, 59,300).

James Stafford, TikTok UK general manager, said: “We are delighted that the BookTok community has been recognised as the FutureBook Person of the Year for 2022. BookTok is a community of billions who share the books they love with unapologetic passion and creativity. It has been humbling to see this diverse group of reading enthusiasts thrive on TikTok and have a positive cultural impact both on and off the platform.

“BookTok has connected people around the world with a shared love of literature, and while we at TikTok are committed to supporting this inspiring community, I join the rest of the publishing industry in congratulating the BookTok creators on this award. We look forward to seeing what the future will bring!”

Philip Jones, editor of The Bookseller, said: “In citing the remarkable influence of BookTok we are acknowledging the myriad creators of bookish content whose enthusiasm for books does so much for so many authors, readers, booksellers and publishers, and has quite simply resulted in a boon for backlist sales quite unlike anything we have seen in recent years. This affirmation of the written word, from a generation that has grown up with so many other sources of entertainment, is of huge importance to the book business. This is our way of saying thank you to those who do it. Don’t ever stop.”

At the FutureBook Conference on 18th November, TikTok teams from HarperVoyager and Simon & Schuster will showcase how they run their BookTok hustles, with HarperVoyager building a creator house for budding TikTokkers to use on the day. A number of prominent BookTokkers have been invited to the event.

The conference, now in its 12th year, is themed around Common Ground: the idea that if publishing is to get stronger, smarter and more sustainable, it needs to find better ways of working together. The full programme can be viewed at thebookseller.com/futurebook-programme, with tickets available online or via head of publisher relations Emma Lowe (emma.lowe@thebookseller.com).