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TikTok: The New Literary Forum

For the past two years, books have been climbing the charts not because of newspaper or literary reviews or TV deals or some miraculous PR stunt, but due to users on TikTok who deemed it worthy.

Millions of people are getting their book recommendations from TikTok these days. The video-sharing platform has grown a lot and is used by billions of people. That has led to a BookTok community forming on the app and affecting book sales. BookTok — the TikTok community of bibliophiles — helped authors sell 20 million books in print in 2021. In 2022, those sales went up 50 percent. Many of those sales are from fiction novels you’ve probably seen on supermarket shelves and in airport stores: The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid, Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens, and literally anything by Colleen Hoover. The reason you’re seeing them take those spots isn’t lost on literary TikTokkers with a platform.

Authors like Colleen Hoover and Taylor Jenkins Reid have seen their books surge on book charts as a result. And the book industry has taken notice. Now, they are teaming up with TikTok to sell directly to customers.

The Most Read Books of 2022 According to TikTok

It Ends With Us by Colleen Hoover

The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo by Taylor Jenkins Reid

How to Read Now: Essays by Elaine Castillo

Where the Crawdads Sing by Delia Owens

A Court of Thorns and Roses by Sarah J. Maas

Time is a Mother by Ocean Vuong

Bliss Montage: Stories by Ling Ma

A Little Life by Hanya Yanagihara

Babel by R. F. Kuang

Either/Or by Elif Batuman

The Night and It’s Moon by Piper CJ

How to Fall Out of Love Madly by Jana Casale

You’ve Reached Sam by Dustin Thao

Six of Crows by Leigh Bardugo

A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder by Holly Jackson

One of Us is Lying by Karen M. McManus

The Midnight Library by Matt Haig

The Guest List by Lucy Foley

Mexican Gothic by Silvia Moreno-Garcia

Book Lovers by Emily Henry

The Invisible Life of Addie LaRue by V. E. Schwab

Funny You Should Ask by Elissa Sussman

Tomorrow, and Tomorrow, and Tomorrow: A Novel by Gabrielle Zevin

Verity by Colleen Hoover

Bunny by Mona Awad

All About Love by Bell Hooks

I’m Glad My Mom Died by Jennette McCurdy

This is How You Lose the Time War by Amal El-Mohtar

Before the Coffee Gets Cold by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

The Atlas Six by Olivie Blake

Tiktok might not appeal to many and although the platform has faced many criticism in recent times but one can’t deny the positive influence its having on literature,  as it is encouraging the younger generation to read more and helping authors by buying their books. Colleen Hoover has become a megastar thanks to TikTok and she isn’t the only one.