Today, with more and more books being published, a book’s release needs to make a splash to perform well. As Jackson P. Brown claims in an article with the Bookseller, “Bookstagram, BookTok and BookTube create bestsellers” (Brown, 2025). This has been a trend growing since the pandemic in 2020, and continues to be the case, with publishers choosing to use social media influencers as their main source of marketing in many campaigns. 

In the early days of the pandemic, readers flocked to social media to talk about the books they were enjoying, building a community with other readers. The extent to which BookTok can affect the popularity of a book can be seen in “December 2020, when Adam Silvera’s They Both Die at the End and E Lockhart’s We Were Liars tripled and doubled their weekly sales respectively, compared to the last week before lockdown in early November.” (Former Member, 2022). Looking at statistics such as these, it is easy to see how a book can be affected by BookTok later in its life, as they are given a new chance to find a wider audience. 

So how do publishers and authors use social media in their marketing to promote books now? 

Since these early pandemic days, there have been more changes in how BookTok affects the sales and popularity of books. According to Emma Quick in a panel during the London Book Fair, she explained that content creators are seen as friends by their audience, which causes people to trust their recommendations (Mak et al., 2025). With this power, BookTok creators can make or break the popularity of a given book title. If a content creator makes a post about a newly released book that gains traction, it can change the sales of that book astronomically. This has changed the way books are being marketed, with a larger focus being placed on influencers. However, Emma Quick says this is to spark conversation within the reading community and cannot be used as a book’s only marketing strategy (Mak et al., 2025). Social media has long since been used for marketing in the forms of advertisements, but the addition of trusted content creators sharing their opinions on their latest reads and offering recommendations allows other readers to feel like they are part of a larger community.

While BookTok can skyrocket the sales of a book, they can also jumpstart an author’s career. Many authors take to content creation to build an audience for their work, sometimes even before they begin shopping it around to agents and publishers. For example, Jackson P. Brown talks about how she posted on TikTok about her upcoming book, and “the views exploded overnight, leading to dozens of NetGalley requests, preorders, and a podcast interview” (Brown, 2025). Brown, and other authors, found the readership she was looking for and major marketing opportunities through content creation.

Content creators, and BookTok as a whole, are becoming more important to the publishing industry, but it is important to remember that they should be used to listen to each corner of the reading community, rather than just the major trends within them.

References

Brown, Jackson P. 2025. Bring a chair. The Bookseller [online] Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/comment/bring-a-chair [Accessed April 28 2025]

Former Member. 2022. TikTok’s time as platforms fuels a run of bestsellers. The Bookseller [online] Available at: https://www.thebookseller.com/features/tiktoks-time-comes-as-platform-fuels-a-run-of-bestsellers [Accessed May 1 2025]

Mak, F., Tonge, D., Clarke, T., Quick E. 2025. Influence and Impact: Shaping the Future of Publishing. London Book Fair [in person] [Attended March 12 2025]

Image Credit: Libby Schade