The wonderful world of BookTok. In case you don’t know- BookTok is the world of books told through the TikTok universe. BookTok has had a great impact on books and reading. I believe, as with any business, Marketing is a necessary evil, and that’s how it started.
It seems, though, that reading exploded with the Romantasy niche and the 20-somethings. Which is a good thing, of course, there are pros and cons to everything. Social Media is always that. Taking the good with the drama, which can be unfortunate.
If you explore BookTok, you have to remember that a majority of the creators are readers giving their opinion, and quite a few of them are getting paid. So I take the good with the bad. At the end of the day, following BookTok got me out of a year-long reading slump, which I am grateful for.
Reading Is Subjective
You hear this a million times on Social Media. Well, everything is subjective. At first, when I started watching the book recommendations- I admit- I was very influenced, and after seeing so many people recommend the same ten books, I thought they must be good.
It never occurred to me that it’s possible they are paid for the reviews (I don’t know why though), that’s my thing for sure. It will hit you, though if you don’t like the book, Is something wrong with me? We all like different things, down to how something is said or what is important in a book.
Characters Or Story Readers
Through the recommendations, I came to realize what is important to me in a story, and reviewers will point these things out to you, which saves time. I never understood before that I am a character-driven reader. It doesn’t make the story less important, but I now tend to look out for certain things like character-driven and banter. I seem to really like the conversations in books, have to like the people as well.
The Authors
I swear I never knew so much about Authors. I didn’t know the difference between Mass Market and Indie. By the way, Indie Authors are Independent or self-published, and Mass Market are the big publishing houses. I kind of like both, as we all do, I try to really support the Indie Authors though because I know what it’s like to work for yourself. The marketing is especially hard when we are in word-of-mouth businesses.
Book Genres
There are many different book genres, and if not for BookTok, I don’t know that I could have figured it out so quickly. One particular thing that this affected was the age genre. Most books, it seems, today are written for the 20-somethings. As an over-forty person, I have no interest in that. Finding books with people like me was hard until a creator pointed out genres that defined age groups.
Special Offers
It really is the best way to see what books are coming out. Let me just say, “Stuff your Kindle days”. There are sponsored events on Amazon where you can get ebooks for free if you have Kindle Unlimited and even other modes of downloading books. These events often aren’t advertised and are sponsored by specific websites or social media accounts.
So if you’re new to BookTok or just trying to figure it out, I hope this helps!
Happy Reading,
Heidi
