By Shannon Lee
Gaining imminent traction since 2020 in the U.S. and expanding the popularity of authors, book recommendations, and influencers, BookTok continues to solidify its status as a formidable force in the publishing industry. In 2021 alone, BookTok helped authors to sell 20 million of their books according to BookScan, and as of January 2023, there are over 100 billion views of videos that are tagged “BookTok.” Off-screen, readers have seen this technological marketing mechanism manifest into physical realities and human interactions. Local Barnes & Noble stores now greet their customers with a series of tables labeled “As Seen on BookTok,” and the literary sensation It Ends with Us is now listed on its cover as “It Ends with Us: TikTok made me buy it!”
Alternatively, I don’t believe BookTok’s greatest purpose is to use it as a platform for publicity,
but instead, it serves another purpose: a medium for made-to-order recommendations. There is a
sense of personalization, customization, and uniqueness to videos we either scroll past or watch
based on our behavior preferences, hence the name “For You” page.
According to Professor Lindsay Thomas in the Department of Literatures in English at Cornell University, “Depending on how you interact with those videos — if you watch them to the end, if you rewatch them, if you quickly swipe them away — it will send more of the same or try something else. Once [the algorithm] learns more about what you like, the system will reliably send you related videos, but it will also keep trying new stuff to see how you respond. This iterative process is how it learns to suggest videos ‘For You.’”
Users who have similar taste in romance novels as you or who are the same age and demographic might show up more frequently if you are more prone to watching these videos, but the algorithm will also find new trends and data to send your way in a continuous effort to discern preference. This mastermind of the algorithm isn’t viewed explicitly, but rather curtained behind other bibliophiles and book-loving content creators who are just as enthusiastic as the users themselves. I find the most captivating aspect of BookTok is the personal one-on-one connection between the user and someone else who is also obsessing over the same book as them or the user and someone else who inspires them to journal. This level of customer satisfaction is singular and high because of this human element.
I resonate with this statement by Thomas: “BookTok recommendations feel more like asking a friend what they think you might like and why.” Once you are past the “getting to know you phase” and into a “friendship phase,” broad-scoping questions might become specific to certain topics based on similarities or positive reactions. Instead of a baseless, non-contextualized recommendation, you feel comfortable sitting down with a friend to ask for their valued opinion.
In return, they might know trends in books that people of the same age or demographic are reading or your favorite genres and can give new, customized recommendations.
Similarly, the algorithm knows your preferences because of your habitually elicited positive and negative reactions to the videos. It feeds you the old and new content like two friends recalling old memories while making new ones. It feels like a trusted source because it knows you.
In tethering between old and new, this concept—seemingly foreign and now prominent in the publishing industry—creates pronounced and affirmed suggestions that point more to your preferences than literary merit. It is important to note that the algorithm doesn’t specifically point to sophisticated, world-renowned books, but instead a culmination of trends you love and trends forthcoming or different. We too, in accepting BookTok as a source of recommendation, find ourselves tethering between old and new, inherently the same but yearning for changing trends all at once.
References
“Booktok Has Passion-and Enormous Marketing Power.” The Economist. Accessed July 29,
2024. https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/11/06/booktok-has-passion-and-
enormous-marketing-power?
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Harris, Elizabeth A. “How TikTok Became a Best-Seller Machine.” The New York Times, July
1, 2022. https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/books/tiktok-books-booktok.html.
Thomas, Lindsay. “Booktok and the Rituals of Recommendation.” Post45, December 8, 2023.
https://post45.org/2023/12/booktok-and-the-rituals-of-recommendation/
#footnote_12_22273.
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