Female TikTokers have revolutionised the publishing industry and boosted sales, a leading insider has said. 

London’s Notting Hill Bookshop - made famous as the shop where Hugh Grant worked in Notting Hill - has recently thanked the video sharing app for helping it achieve “one of its best years in history”.

Sales have doubled since the pandemic and shop owners credit reviews by TikTokers as driving interest in reading.

Speaking to Newstalk Breakfast, Vibes & Scribes director Joan Lucey said #BookTok is a phenomenon she has seen down in Cork as well.

“What we’re seeing is there’s a group - particularly young women - who have taken the #BookTok to their hearts,” she said.

“During lockdown, they started making videos and it has given them a power to review the books they like to bring them to the attention of millions, really.

“It’s given them a power that maybe readers never had before.”

Generally speaking, sales have increased most significantly in the types of books popular with young women but #BookTok has boosted interest in a number of other titles as well.

“So, it’s young adult fantasy, romance - that area, really,” Ms Lucey said.

“Also, some of the classics have been revived and The Secret History by Donna Tart which I think was published in ‘91, it’s 20 or 30 years since I read it.

“It wasn’t a classic, it was just a bit of a whodunit, a bit of a literary fiction set in a university and that came to someone’s notice, they reviewed it and it just went viral.”

The dawn of #BookTok has turned the publishing world on its head; previously, publishers held all the power, now, young influencers have become major players in the industry.

“They [publishers] decided who was published, they decided what happened quite a bit and now it’s these young women for the area that they’re interested in,” Ms Lucey said.

“They’ve taken the power and the publishers are actually following them.”

The future?

Despite this, Ms Lucey is unsure whether it is a permanent change or if publishers will figure out a way to influence what gets said on #BookTok.

“It depends on whether the publishers get into it too much and take control,” she said.

“Rather than it being organic and genuine reviews… You know when big money invests in things and they buy the reviews and all that, then it won’t be quite as authentic and will probably die off.”

Book sales in Ireland were worth an estimated €165.9 million in 2023, according to BookScan.

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Main image: A bookshop.