BookTok or the contraction between book and Tiktok… This curious hashtag, which has become a true phenomenon, appeared on the platform at the end of 2020, first in the United States. TikTok becomes aware of the phenomenon when the American account “Aymanbooks” spoke about the book The Song of Achilles. After the publication of the video, the sales of the book multiplied by 9.
The tag has 82 billion views, including 1.6 billion in France. Manga videos work especially well.
“We want to start and give our users a taste for reading,” says the director of operations.
TikTok on all fronts
And for this, the platform has all the actors in the literary world: from content creators to publishers and authors. A TikTok editorial team is even in charge of meeting them and has launched a call for applications. Thus, 120 people, including booksellers, fans, literary consultants receive books from publishers and are responsible for telling their reading experience on the platform.
Bookstores are also starting to invest in TikTok: le Furet du Nord has 16,000 subscribers on its account. His two advisers from the manga department are a hit with humorous content. In the US, the Barnes & Noble bookstore even dedicates an entire section to BookTok books.
Faced with the influx of literary content, TikTok had to take the lead. Questioned by Tech&Co on the sidelines of the meeting, Marlène Masure assures that the platform “has no editorial judgment on a book. We simply want the rules of the community to be applied.” If the content talks about sex, drugs or talks about a book in a way that is too suggestive, it will not appear in the feed. “The algorithms and our moderation teams are quite powerful,” she insists.
A blessing for publishers
Authors themselves are taking over TikTok: Joël Dicker, the famous author of The truth about the Harry Quebert affair He posted his first video on October 12. Content creators are also supported. Valentine Tedo, creator of the “In Letters” account, receives tips from TikTok on the form of videos: “don’t put too many hashtags or be shocking from the first three seconds,” she explains.
TikTok France collaborates with 25 publishers. Hachette says that “it has become an essential communication hub for us,” according to Laetitia Joubert, Deputy Director of Content and Digital Marketing at Hachette. “For example, we published the book A thousand kisses for a boylaunched in 2016. The TikTok account “We the readers” made several videos about this book in the summer of 2021 and 10,000 sales were recorded as a result of these publications”, he develops.
Hachette acknowledges a growing investment in this area and has even launched its own account with 24,000 subscribers. The publishing house also organizes lives. The one by Holly Black, author of fantasy books for teenagers, was seen by 62,000 people.
However, TikTok cannot assess the actual impact of the hashtag. Watching literary videos doesn’t necessarily mean reading the featured books. In the same way, the public, who is fond of this content, is still predominantly female, “except for manga” and has fun watching Marlène Masure.
Source: BFM TV
