I feel like there needs to be a thread that shares the booktok drama. For example, the author review-bomber (thread). Recently, i came across PW article about JD Barker sending messages to Booktokers (mainly young women) wanting them to do racey promotions of his new book. His publisher dropped him after that and the author speaker house removed him as one of their authors. (Will post article) I shared it with my fellow librarians and they said "oh yeah! Thats all over Booktok!" So lets make a "booktok" for us "tiktok-less" peoples!
The man got as far as getting an agent and publisher, then makes the choice to do creepy things. Why ruin your success like that?
a subgroup of TikTok where the content is book related. Book promotion, book reviews, book content by social media influencers.
The hipper, cooler new version of BookTube which is the same thing, only on YouTube. But I never heard about any insane goings-on at the BookTube.
I know about BookTok because of a weird NHL-related controversy. Apparently BookTok is a very horny place where there are many sexually charged posts aka "thirst." And somehow, hockey-related romance novels are popular? Like, selling millions of copies popular? Very odd to me, but I guess there's probably some appeal to having a hockey player partner who is rich, always physically fit, abides by a conservative honour system ("The Code"), and will likely lose all arguments with their romantic partners on account of their not being educated beyond a very basic level. An unchallenging, noble barbarian to **** the **** out of you on demand. Did I mention they're rich? Anyway, some of the horny women on BookTok took it too far with the erotic fan fiction, messages, general harassment, etc. with a particular player. Him and his wife felt the need to call them out, asking for the nonsense to end: https://www.cbc.ca/arts/commotion/w...was-unleashed-on-the-seattle-kraken-1.6936740
this is literally what made Romance the number one genre last year and what made all of Colleen Hoover's books (and a bunch of old self-published erotica) go viral. I mean, good on them... those authors were picked up by agents and those novels reprinted with new and updated covers. it was crazy! my library had a Booktok display and it like 50 percent colleen hoover, 30 percent sports romance (hockey... I'm pretty sure one romance was called "Motherpucker"), 10 percent roommate romance, and 10 percent other. i didn't know some of the characters were based off of real hockey players, and the fact that these people are basically stalking them?? sheesh!
I guess that replaces cowboy related romance novels popular in this area. Now that sounds like a porn comedy!
From Publisher's Weekly this week: (dark academia romance and sports romance are basically tied for most popular romance subgenres BTW)
I'd also like to add that some agents i've come across in the query process of specifically asked on their form what your tiktok following is and if you use booktok.
Strange. Before I heard of "BookTok", I thought TikTok was supposedly only for teenagers looking for attention. Am I wrong? I've seen authors promoting themselves on Facebook and YouTube, but not on TikTok. Personally, I don't have a video camera, so the only way to promote myself would be through the written word (which is, after all, my stock in trade).
It's mostly that, but people do post some better content. Diamonds scattered in a junkyard. Tiktok is apparently a Chinese website, or at least they originally created it, but in China it's all very educational and promotes good values (good Chinese values of course).
Every generation has their version. in HS, we had "Vine" and in college we had "YikYak" and "SnapChat" TikTok is literally just a combination of all 3
Wow, I write romance (sorry, clean and wholesome, not erotica). I have never looked at BookTok, although I have read on Romance FB groups that some members have had fantastic success with that platform.
*shrug* I can't say I understand the hoo-ha about AI-generated anything. I tried "generating" stories with AI (ChatGPT, anyone?) and the results were dismal failures. By that standard, AI-generated art will probably look like horse patties. In the words of Colonel Sherman Potter on M*A*S*H* : "What the Sam Hill do you think you're doing here?"
