But it’s still tricky to predict what will take off. They might use background songs that are already doing well on the app, for example, use TikTok’s analytics to see what time of day their posts do the best and try to put up videos on a regular schedule. Many popular TikTok users have strategies to maximize views. (The Lee sisters have received books from authors but have yet to be contacted by publishers or paid for their posts.) Now publishers are starting to catch on, contacting those with big followings to offer free books or payment in exchange for publicizing their titles.

For publishers it has been an unexpected jolt: an industry that depends on people getting lost in the printed word is getting dividends from a digital app built for fleeting attention spans. The vast majority of BookTok videos happen organically, posted by enthusiastic young readers. Many of their posts feel like tiny movie trailers, where pictures flash across the screen to a moody soundtrack. The Lee sisters, who live in Brighton, England, started making BookTok videos while bored at home during the pandemic. “We haven’t seen these types of crazy sales - I mean tens of thousands of copies a month - with other social media formats.”

“These creators are unafraid to be open and emotional about the books that make them cry and sob or scream or become so angry they throw it across the room, and it becomes this very emotional 45-second video that people immediately connect with,” said Shannon DeVito, director of books at Barnes & Noble. There is no corresponding Instagram or Twitter table, however, because no other social-media platform seems to move copies the way TikTok does. Many Barnes & Noble locations around the United States have set up BookTok tables displaying titles like “They Both Die at the End,” “The Cruel Prince,” “A Little Life” and others that have gone viral.

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