You may have read that Generation Z searches on TikTok rather than Google. It’s not true (it was a phrase taken out of context that talked about fashion shopping habits), but it’s getting closer and closer to reality. Maybe some of you think that the influencers on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube or -in extreme cases- the press have the upper hand when it comes to recommending and turning an unknown novel into a hit with the public, but the truth is that this is the merit of TikTok and the booktokers. Don’t you know them yet?
Tik, Tok, book
“Addictive and quick to read books“, “Booktok books that I do recommend”, “If you’ve read it, I like you”, “Books in 60 seconds”… No matter how much the cultural establishment has tried to promote reading through campaigns and somewhat outdated comments from authors unknown to young people, the truth is that literature has once again become one of the main hobbies among Generation Z thanks, paradoxically, to TikTok. If this is all Greek to you and you were one of those who believed that TikTok was destroying culture instead of promoting it, don’t worry: we all have a boomer inside us.
Booktokers can sell out copies of books that were released four years earlier, make and break phenomena: publishers have stopped looking at the most brainy websites to focus on influencers who, in just one minute, are able to sell a book to their followers. Novels like ‘It Ends with Us’, ‘The Atlas Six’ or ‘The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo’ might never have had more commercial trajectory if it weren’t for a teenager who discovered them and quickly made them viral.
The phenomenon of recommending books through videos has been around since the days of booktubers. But since 2016, the change of favorite social network has also brought with it a change in attitudes. It is no longer of interest that you convince me in ten minutes of the goodness of a new young adult novel. Now you have one. If it can be less, even better. Studies are showing that, all over the world, Gen Z took refuge in reading after the pandemic and confinement. With no friends or nights out, TikTok became a key place to have a new hobby, get ideas, recommend and devour page after page. It’s not so strange after all, is it, or don’t you rely on your friends to pick your next book?
Don’t judge TikTok by its front cover
Obviously, this phenomenon has, for publishers, the same problem as any influencer: except for very specific phenomena, it is impossible to know the real phenomenon in sales of the novels that are promoted. They know that they influence, but not how much. It is not a problem: the cost for the company to send a hundred copies is minimal for the result they can obtain.
Some may complain that great literary masterpieces such as ‘Crime and Punishment’ or ‘Don Quixote’ are not represented in this new generation of readers. Frankly, there is no need for that. At TikTok, they know how to encourage reading what they want to read: their opinion leaders keep going, novel after novel, teen saga after teen saga, browsing everything that affects them personally. Maybe that’s why we’ve seen an increase in millennial and Gen Z literature like the fabulous ‘Supersaurus’ or the very punk ‘Taller de chapa y pintura’. You have to give the reader what they want to read.
But it’s not all about recommendations: booktokers are aware that their channels should not just look like simple Teleshops or automatic recommenders, and that’s why they often upload short sketches, identifiable jokes, memes and more, following trends that transcend the community itself. TikTok has a unique language, narrative guidelines that are different from any other social network, and it was not going to be less in the literary recommendation.
Want some names to know where to start? Jot some down: @anne.r.r._ @saraar_fer @libroslibroslibroslibros or @andreorowling are just a few to start with. From there, let yourself go: TikTok’s algorithm is chaotic and impulsive and nothing foretells which video will become a hit and which won’t… But it usually gets right what we want to see. And, therefore, what we’re going to read.
Sit back, enjoy and search for #booktokers in the TikTok search engine: You have to know how to adapt to the times!
