The moment you find your next read on BookTok

Reading is cool again, and it's all thanks to BookTok.

The reading resurgence started in 2020, when most people were stuck at home needing to fill their time with simple hobbies. Today, the #booktok hashtag has 243+ billion views on TikTok, and is one of the biggest and most powerful subcommunities on the app.

• A 2023 survey found the average US TikTok user reported reading 60% more books compared to before their exposure to BookTok.
• In addition, 62% of US TikTok users have read at least one book recommended to them on the platform.

Case in point: Fiction writer Colleen Hoover may be the best example of the almighty power of BookTok. Although her novel It Ends With Us was published in 2016, it became the bestselling book of 2021 after someone posted a TikTok review that went viral. 4+ million copies were sold worldwide.

Bookstores love the trend. Many have created dedicated “BookTok” shelves featuring popular online titles front and center. However, critics argue this results in the same tropes and genres being recommended repeatedly, leading to a lack of general literary analysis and diversity of genres in popular culture.

🤑 Zoom out: The TikTok commerce engine goes brrrr – both off platform and on. TikTok Shop is expected to facilitate $50 billion in sales this year, more than double the dollar value of items sold on the marketplace in 2023.