(Image by ***Alexandra_Koch*** on Pixabay)

I’m not on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok… you get the idea.

So, why am I talking about BookTok, the ‘book corner’ of TikTok?

I admit I didn’t even know that was a thing.

I’ve known about Booktube for some years, even followed a few Booktubers for a while until it all became samey and more about hauls than anything else, but literally only found about BookTok last week.

And that’s thanks to the YouTube algorithm recommending a video from someone I’d not come across before, ‘According to Alina’.

I found her video titled, ‘TikTok’s overconsumption problem: is BookTok just as bad?’ quite eye-opening.

To be honest, it doesn’t bother me where people find their reading recommendations, neither do I care which of the many genres readers prefer – to each their own…

Though I do believe more effort could be made when it comes to assigning genre to some books, especially those targeted at a younger audience; for example, instead of simply slotting a book into the ‘romance’ section when it includes more hard-hitting topics like domestic abuse or toxic relationships, make sure it’s marketed to older readers instead of the younger end of ‘young adult’.

It would appear that one of the things that put me off BookTube has surfaced on BookTok, namely the month-end wrap-up where the content creator shows the, usually unbelievable, number of books they’ve read, like 39 books in one month…

Seriously, how can one actually read more books than there are days in a month?

Maybe their list includes audio books and graphic novels, but invariably the pile of books shown are all novels.

Anyway, the part of Alina’s video that really caught my attention is at timestamp 21:20.

It appears that ByteDance, the company that owns TikTok is starting its own publishing company.

Doesn’t seem like such a bad thing, until you realise that, like other social media platforms, TikTok engages in something called ‘heating’.

Not only does the algorithm decide what to show the TikTok user based on their behaviour on the app, staff at Tiktok and ByteDance ‘secretly hand-pick specific videos and supercharge their distribution, using a practice known internally as “heating”.’

Although Tiktok doesn’t publicly disclose this, Forbes’ sources have reported that Tiktok ‘has often used heating to court influencers and brands, enticing them into partnerships by inflating their videos’ view count.’

Guess that explains why some influencers and brands do better than others, who seem to fade into obscurity no matter how hard they try.

When it comes to books, the genres that feature most on BookTok are romance, mystery, and fantasy, and it should come as no surprise that these are the genres the algorithm already pushes.

What’s going to happen once ByteDance’s own publishing company starts pushing its own books on TikTok?

What about authors who write in different genres?

What about authors who use other methods of publishing?

What about authors who aren’t on TikTok and have no desire to be on it?

What about those who’d rather have their teeth pulled than come up with a TikTok dance to promote their book?

Alina makes a good point near the end of her video when she says there’s a real danger “we might be heading towards a more homogenous literature due to the influence of social media trends on the publishing industry.”

Personally, I believe that’s a horrible future for literature.

Thank heavens for the classics and books that are already out there.

Yet, how many potentially fantastic new/budding authors will we never hear of… how many great, fun, moving, personal, epic stories will we never read?

BookTok - Good or Bad for Authors?