After having profoundly transformed the way of consuming books, the TikTok social network has made the decision to officially consolidate itself in this industry. Avec sa communauté “BookTok” (a mélange of “book”, “livre” in English, and “TikTok”), the social network propels certain titles to the rank of best-sellers, obliging the publishing houses and suivre libraries the tendency.
Fueled by this success, ByteDance seems to have decided to launch its own publishing house. Indeed, the company registered, at the end of April, the brand “8th Note Press”, a company classified as dedicated to the sale and publication of books, explained the specialized site Business Insider.
HE New York Times also reveals, in a July 1 post, that the 8th Note Press brand will be a separate entity from TikTok. It would be, according to an email consulted by the American newspaper, an approach dedicated mainly to digital books, but also to the “very limited” edition of books in paper version. The company did not provide further details to the New York Times.
The main fear is that TikTok favors its own authors more, or even hurts others for reasons that are not transparent.
a remarkable success
These concerns are backed by the power of the BookTok community, whose hashtag has more than 153 billion views. In France, the keywords “BookTok France”, “BookFrance” or “BookTokFR” have a total of more than 2.5 billion views. It is a community of mostly young users who regularly offer book recommendations.
The phenomenon has been so successful that bookstores and publishers have seen remarkable enthusiasm for titles that appeared years ago, providing a welcome boost to the literary industry.
In bookstores, the BookTok phenomenon has also taken hold: more and more of these businesses offer a “TikTok” section, often filled with romance or fantasy novels, aimed primarily at young people.
Source: BFM TV
