I think we're actually talking about different phenomena. It's not that booktok is driving sales for all books, it's that certain books sales are primarily driven by booktok and there's an attempt to figure out how to make that trigger consistently to drive traffic where publishers want it to go. Consider that Night And Its Moon is critically panned, but has a huge following on BookTok and was primarily got a book deal due to the initial pitch going viral on BookTok.
Of course one of the things to note is that the books with disproportionate BookTok audience whose sales are driven this way are often written by pretty, white, well-off women.
Pretty aside (while not denigrating its value in videos), the book market has long been dominated (reading, writing, and publishing) by well-off white women.
Not always dominated, mind you, but when they took it over, they grabbed ahold of it with both hands.
By definition - isn't the market going to be dominated by successful participants?
Do you mean independently wealthy people? Long ago, this was definitely true - as you only knew how to read & write if you were rich, and you were definitely only buying books if you were rich.
Starting shortly after the printing press - yes, poor people weren't dominating the market. But it wasn't dominated by royalty (the vast majority of actual wealthy people of the time).
I don't know where you'd consider Alexandre Dumas - but he's kind of the typical successful writer from his generation. His family was somewhat upper-class, but definitely not wealthy for most of his childhood.
Charles Dickens was much less wealthy than Dumas. Mark Twain & Thoreau grew up definitely not in the upper class. Same for Nathaniel Hawthorne.
Dostoyevsky was not from wealth
Mary Shelley was wealthy. Jane Austen & Emily Dickinson were upper class - but not wealthy. But neither were highly successful during their lifetimes. The Bronte sisters were somewhat well off - less so than Austen and Dickinson - but not from a long-line of wealth, and even they weren't very successful in their lifetime!
Tolstoy AFAIK was the only super successful independently wealthy writer from the time. Poe, Melville, Henry James, and Victor Hugo were definitely well off, but "wealthy" seems like a stretch.
If you look at today - it is definitely not true. JK Rowling is by far the most successful author of the generation, and she was arguably poor before finding success with Harry Potter.
Suzanne Collins worked her way up from the bottom and had very middle class life before success with The Hunger Games.
Maybe you mean the majority of authors have not-poor spouses? They better! The median author probably makes less than $100 in their career as a writer.
The early 1900s is a continuation - with men dominating, and the women being mostly upper class but not wealthy.
Wharton is rich (the phrase keeping up with the Joneses comes from her family), Woolf and Gertrude Stein are well-off and McCullers & Plath a bit less so. Harper Lee's father was a lawyer, and she's a one-hit wonder. Toni Morrison was not rich...
The vast majority of men - who dominate (not the women) - are not from well-off families: Steinbeck, Orwell, Sinclair, Tolkein, Fitzgerald, Lewis Carroll, Tennessee Williams, D.H Lawrence, Jack London (who claimed to be poor but wasn't), Kerouac, Vonnegut. Stephen King and Stan Lee were arguably poor.
Hemingway, Salinger, Conrad, Roald Dahl, and Joseph Heller are not from wealth, but definitely not poor.
Frank L Baum was wealthy, similar to Melville & Hugo - Woolf, Gertrude Stein, and Jane Austen - but less so than Tolstoy.
> They better! The median author probably makes less than $100 in their career as a writer.
This is in agreement, not to contradict you, to be clear: The median author form whom writing is their primary income in the UK earns well below minimum wage from their writing, and the vast majority of writers do not have it as their primary income.
At the same time, as I've expanded on elsewhere in this thread, the household income of that same group is above the UK median.
This is only very recently true (and disregarding the "well off" part).
Women probably authored over 50% of books starting sometime in the 2010s. [1]
And dominate might still be too strong of a word to use, though it's likely true for some genres (ie. ~80% of books and sales in romance).
Going by the graphs on page 28 figure 2: Today, women are probably authors of around ~45% to ~60% of new books in the dataset (Goodreads/Bookstat(amazon)/US copyright) and still climbing .
> disproportionate BookTok audience whose sales are driven this way are often written by pretty, white, well-off women.
Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book? Its a pretty big time investment with basically no garuntees. I imagine its pretty rare for poor people who work all day to be successful writers.
Not to mention a probably strong correlation in higher education in an area that is not all that useful for getting a job,probably further tips the scale to well off people.
Basically what i'm wondering, is it really disporportionate relative to the industry at large.
All of this is applicable to where I'm from (global south); don't know how it is in western countries.
> Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?
No. I'm aware of plenty of critically acclaimed writers who are not particularly rich. (Although there are plenty of people who got rich because of the books).
I guess most of them have/had other jobs, like teaching at a university for example. And some — especially people who were university teachers — tend to continue on that job.
> Not to mention a probably strong correlation in higher education in an area that is not all that useful for getting a job
A college degree in things like literature, political science, economics, and general science subjects (physics, chemistry, math, biology etc) tend to be inexpensive here, as compared to a degree in engineering or medical science.
> I guess most of them have/had other jobs, like teaching at a university for example. And some — especially people who were university teachers — tend to continue on that job.
University prof might not be a wealthy job, but class wise it is usually considered pretty high class. We're not exactly talking about the people putting 9-5 in doing manual labour at a construction site.
> A college degree in things like literature, political science, economics, and general science subjects (physics, chemistry, math, biology etc) tend to be inexpensive here, as compared to a degree in engineering or medical science.
Maybe, but its still a large investment for questionable financial gain. The opportunity cost is high. The pay-off (ignoring things like love of the subject and instrinsic value) is pretty low. Its a hard thing to justify if you're not at least upper-middle class.
> University prof might not be a wealthy job, but class wise it is usually considered pretty high class. We're not exactly talking about the people putting 9-5 in doing manual labour at a construction site.
Ah, yes. Agreed.
> Maybe, but its still a large investment for questionable financial gain.
No no, I don't think you realize how cheap education can be where I'm from. Getting admitted is an entirely different matter. And don't ask me how, but here there's an inverse correlation between how good a university is and how expensive it is. Like, here the best universities seem to be run by the government and are therefore much cheaper than private universities. Which is why it is also very hard to get into those govt run universities.
Also — I think this is a cultural thing — generally people here tend to want go to college, even if ultimately there is little correlation between what they study and what they end up doing (atleast, for non-engineering non-medical courses).
And, college degree is kind of expected for any job here. I don't know if that's what's caused the cultural default of going to college, or vice versa.
So yes, lots of complex, and sometimes contradicting dynamics at play.
There are inefficiencies with such an attitude, but I guess it is what it is.
(And, I'm not an expert in any of what I said above, so take all of that with a pinch of salt.)
I think the US has a very weird relationship with education. Here in Germany, you pay a small fee to the university, then an even smaller fee for something else and then like 150€ or so for public transport through the whole state. I think I paid something like 250 or 300€ a semester (graduated in 2016 in the state of North Rhine Westphalia).
Whether or not a degree provides financial success later in life is just not something people care about. You only have to pay back 50% of your student loans but 10k max. Even if your family is dirt poor you will be able to pay for that degree. And even if you end up as a taxi driver youll be able to pay it back (if you even have too... I think there's a certain income threshold you need to hit).
And I think statistically speaking the unemployment rate amongst higher educated people is lower on average than for others even if you look at those "unemployable" degrees.
Going for a philosophy degree or a history degree because it's what you want to do is 100% something society accepts as a valid choice.
Oh and same with private universities. Some universities have a really good reputation for one degree but as a rule of thumb: if you have your degree from a private university in Germany, people will assume Daddy bought your degree.
>Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?
I can say, after 30 years in the publishing business, that the answer to that is no. Many writers are not that well off. In fact, many struggle financially. Many have 'day jobs' to pay the bills.
It's true that many struggle, and as a result most writers are not full time. But first published novels skew quite old, and as I posted elsewhere the average household income in the UK at least for full time writers is well above average, so while I don't think it's high enough to say you have to be "fairly well off", it certainly helps buy you time. Doesn't necessarily buy you success, though.
Most you know might well have started young - many do -, but in terms of getting books published, as per the subject here, the overall numbers are quite clear.
> That just means they married someone with a real job.
Yes, that was exactly the point - to a large extent writing is subsidized by other jobs, and so there is a significant element of privilege involved.
You don't have to be, but e.g. in the UK the average full time author themselves earn below minimum wage, while the average household income for a household with a full time author is far above average.
And the vast majority of writers never make it to full time.
You can also get some indication from the average age at first publication (late 30's if I remember correctly).
Too late to edit, but I wanted to add hard numbers to this from [1]:
"the survey shows a drop in real terms (accounting for inflation) of 42 percent in median earnings from an equivalent of £18,013 in 2006 to £10,497 in 2018" [for those with whose primary, but not necessarily only, occupation is writer]
" It is a striking result that, as households, writers are doing rather well. Average (mean) earnings are over £81,000 per annum, typical (median) earnings £50,000 per annum." The median was lower than I remembered. (The UK disposable (post tax) median income is around 30k, which for a single earner household means around 39k gross, but will be a lower gross income for a two income household; if the writer earns the median, they'd meet the UK median disposable household income if the other person earns only 24k, so the majority of "writer households" are well above the median despite the low writer income)
"The fact that this household ‘subsidy’ is needed to make a living may contribute to the lack of diversity among writers. It is well known from demographic data (confirmed by our survey) that writers are mostly white (94%) and live in the South East. Is writing becoming more elitist as a profession?"
> Don't you have to be fairly well off to invest the time to write a book?
Not necessarily, although I'm sure it helps. Quite a few writers started out by writing their book in between shifts of menial labour or just while they crashed on friends' couches. It's mostly about staying motivated to work on this thing that brings you no money while knowing that you could just give up and do a regular job instead. That's where most would fail while those who have a lot of money don't ever need to even consider it.
Sorta. The issue is the traffic and followings from people who are there because you're pretty aren't the correct audience for what you're selling (assuming what you're selling isn't yourself so to speak). A million views from the wrong audience is less useful than 1000 views from your perfect audience.
This seems to happen in many communities. There's a community of people using chinese emulation consoles, and some of them are decent but a lot of them are absolute crap
But there's a constant influx of "My <crap console> has broken, what do I do?" It's always the same consoles, always the same faults, but led by some tiktok advert that convinces them to buy the same aliexpress tat without any research of why they shouldn't and what modifications they have to make to make it playable
> What does being white or well off have to do with the ability to write books people wanna read?
For actual ability, nothing, though the knock-on affects of being white and thus having a higher chance of greater economic standing from birth onwards, higher chance of good education opportunities, greater likelihood of good nutrition, and all the other aspects of existent systemic racism means that ability to have time to write is greater for white people (in the USA).
Pointing out the reality of systemic racism is not racism. Institutionalized white supremacy is very real in the USA and is so inherent it can have weird effects like how children prefer to play with white dolls: https://www.history.com/news/brown-v-board-of-education-doll... (it turns out this still happens today). So it follows that white women, for the same reason, might have an advantage on social media accessed by people living in a white supremacist system, or a system that still holds echos of white supremacy.
Don't think it is virtue signaling, it is just observation on demographics. There are more well off white people, and more well off white women with spare time, and they get 'status' by being published authors, even thought writers don't make much money.
Others in the thread have posted some links to statistics.
But, this is not to say that there are not exceptions. There are some white women that have written good books, and there are non-white women that publish good books.
It was just observation on a general trend. There is a group with free time to pursue 'something' that doesn't make a lot of money because of the status they get from that 'something'. Hence they have a lot of influence in that market.
The argument, I think, is that these book sales are in big (-er than historically) part driven not by their quality, but by either physical attraction to the author or admiration for their perceived success.
Imho the stark difference between the number of views and likes that these videos generate and the actual sales of the books and (often) their literary quality shows that these book influencers promote merely the idea of reading.
The average TikTok user knows that being on this platform is a gross waste of one's time, but it's oh so addictive, so giving a like to a video promoting a much more healthy and valuable activity like reading a book works as a kind of self-assurance that "I'll start reading again someday, I promise".
I don't mean to sound condescending, but how old are you? I'm only in my late 20s, and even I don't consider myself the main target demographic for the app, but it has proven itself fairly useful for certain scenarios (e.g. something happened around X, was curious about quick videos from the area). There are people who read what you would consider "quality books", and share/talk about them on the app as well. Even a very small subset of users/likes transfer into an actual product purchase is a mind-boggling achievement for the writer, so we might be underselling its value.
A five second clip of <the area where thing happened> is useful. But for anything recommendation/opinion based, tiktok vids are absolutely terrible. There’s not enough time for any nuance and everything is engineered lest u scroll away.
I don’t think GP was trying to undersell the achievement of an author.
I'm not sure what you're talking about, since videos can be up to 10 minutes on TikTok. Sometimes the algorithm favours longer videos to promote "educational stuff" (don't quote me on this, but that's what the corpspeak says, and it's definitely a thing in the Chinese version of the app). I would say 3-5 minutes is more than enough to give a general opinion of a book without going into details.
Wasn't aware of that, thanks for pointing that out. And full disclosure, I haven't seen any tiktok book reviews so these are my thoughts on tiktok globally (which is perhaps unfair). I guess my general annoyance then is the, let's say, minification. And the stupidly engaging hook sentences. Very artificial and a lack of authenticity and because you're at the mercy of the algorithm, the discoverability of niche, genuine vids can be extremely hard. Not that these are groundbreaking takes though
War and Peace was the first book I read as an adult (at 19) and I was blown away. Definitely opened my mind as to how great a great book can be, and raised my standards for what I'm willing to spend time on reading considerably.
I think this was one of the best things that happened to me for my reading habit, and I'm incredibly glad I stumbled upon it sooner rather than later.
The only change I'd make, if possible, would've been to read it at a younger age (12-14) so my perception of what books can be would've been expanded sooner and I could've branched out from my comfort zone at the time.
Depends what do you want to take out of reading. If you are only looking for entertainment, it's logical to pick a romance or an action-packed fantasy book. It's also okay never to graduate from such books, if it's not the way you want to spend your time. What's less okay is to imply that the sole action of reading will linearly increase your knowledge and sophistication. It's cool that you've built a personal library, but if every book in there contains more or less the same story with minor tweaks, then it's not really enlightening.
Not really. I started picking up reading as a habit last year, and as long as you do some research then there's no reason to read crap, but there's also no reason to read epics if those don't appeal to you either.
I started with Hitchhiker's guide and thoroughly enjoyed it. I don't think that's a low-quality book by any means.
It's not low quality, but it is something a lot of people into literary novels would consider low quality. It's certainly an easy read and belongs to a genre that is often looked down on with almost as much disdain as romance novels (while selling a small fraction of romance novels...)
I think we're talking about very different things here then. I don't think I've ever interacted with someone who considers anything less than Tolstoy to be low quality.
In one book title of four simple words... "50 Shades of Grey"
The biggest market has always been romance, followed by mystery, and neither of which requires tremendous literary quality. Beware of survivorship bias when claiming otherwise.
As for the rest of the argument... it speaks for itself.
That's the reality of all social media engagement though. There are going to be way more people just viewing or liking a video versus any other form of more active engagement. The average user you're describing is probably not even engaging in these niches at all that influencers are cultivating.
"Last year in Britain one in four book buyers used TikTok. The slice of sales directly attributable to the app is still small. Video platforms like TikTok and YouTube drove only around 3% of sales in 2022 in Britain, according to Nielsen, a research firm" - Obviously this can grow, but the article just feels like the publishers are rushing to jump on the new thing rather then TikTok changing the way things are done.
My wife did book promotion on TikTok last year and didn't really see it result in too many preorders, despite a few of her videos going somewhat viral (about 5-10k views).
And the instant she took a break from doing 1 video/day her future videos went down to a trickle of views (like around 100), so it seems you have to go pretty hard and consistent on it to get the algorithm to keep throwing eyeballs your way.
She finds book swaps in newsletters and parties and takeovers of Facebook communities to be more effective and easier to keep up with, and she can take breaks from it without suffering too much from it.
That may not be true for all regions or genres, though. And she's a pretty new author still, working on finishing up her third book in her first series, although her first two did pretty well.
Not to ruin things but 5-10k views on TikTok is not nothing but it's also not very viral so I wouldn't expect that to drive any sales. You'd probably expect with TikTok viewer retention, maybe 1/100 viewers would actually be interested enough to watch through the video as well as be in the target audience and then another 1% might actually buy the book. Likes are a more accurate metric since it's kind of the bare minimum for audience interaction.
The real power of TikTok is that you can get 100k+ views even when you're not really that famous and once you see those kinds of numbers you might be able to drive more attention to whatever you're trying to sell. It might also be a bit soul crushing but creativity doesn't really help. If you have a viral video that gets 100k views then you need to make the same kind of video as many times as you can until it stops working.
I said somewhat viral. I'm not claiming these are crazy high numbers for TikTok. I've certainly been shown some dumb videos on there that somehow have 70million+ views. But it was certainly a big jump from the 300-ish views she was getting for her videos the day before.
This was multiple videos she was getting those numbers for (like for a couple of weeks), and she was seeing her preorders go up exactly 0 from it, while seeing better returns for her time on other social media, she ended up with several hundred preorders from other sources. I don't doubt you can get some numbers from TikTok, especially if you can regularly get 100k views.
But it seems to be very fickle and require constant (and as you say, uncreative) spammy videos on there to get that (at least from her experience).
And it's not like it doesn't take time even to make the seemingly low-effort videos. While she was doing it, she was spending time watching other videos to get ideas and get a feel for the TikTok voice/zeitgeist, checking trending audio sources, coming up with how to do something similar yet link that idea to her book, preparing for it (like putting on make-up, making props, etc), filming it (sometimes requiring multiple takes), editing it (within the app), and then posting it. It was taking her somewhere between 45 minutes and 2 hours each day.
I still think she could have gotten to the 100k+ views if she stuck with it, but it was taking significant time and energy away from other things, and as is she's trying to write books while also working a full-time job, so she has little energy for much else right now to begin with.
Yeah. Completely agree with your analysis there. I think one more point I'd add is that TikTok virality (especially with books and other product recommendations) comes more from secondary recommendations such as people stitching your video and going viral. It's really hard to promote something at scale as just a single person.
I know she did a few stitches herself and a couple of her videos were kind of designed to try to encourage stitching, like some sort of prompt or something (although I don't remember the premise of them anymore), but I don't think anyone did.
I would caveat and say that conversion of 1% of all viewers is very unlikely. I would guess it's probably between 1-3% of the channels "fans" who wouldn't otherwise buy the book. If you have 100k+ viewers that leads to enough buyers to support you. If you have a lot more you're going to make a lot money.
But you have the put in years of costumer engagement and marketing throufh through tiktok and other platforms and that in and of itself is a full time job that you have to do in addition to writing books.
Yeah, I can definitely believe that TikTok is changing the way that books are being recommended. But I’m not sold (haha) that TikTok is changing the way books are being sold.
There are quite a few stories of books going viral through BookTok, Bookstagram, and BookTube. But it does feel like slightly different. On TikTok, a random user can make an unknown book go viral. But on Instagram, it’s usually an already established influencer that makes a book go viral and often it’s their own book lol. YouTube is more for longform discussion and the level of virality has changed. But some influencers do still sell books similar to what the influencers on Instagram do.
Related to books being sold in Britain, I wonder how the demographics of these communities affect the stats. Most of the members are white teenage girls and women that live in the United States.
Also, related to books being sold in general, many of the members of the various book communities have similar opinions to HN’s users. They don’t like ads or affiliate links. They’d prefer to go to the library or buy from a local/indie bookstore. They’re anti-Amazon. They discuss overconsumption. On YouTube, they really dive into the ethics of it all.
I do believe that TikTok has gotten people to read more. But that’s different than recommendations and selling.
(I’ll admit that I started reading Cain’s Jawbone due to TikTok. I had heard of it before for years but never bothered to try it out.)
I follow what independent authors are trying for marketing, and some of them are having great success with TikTok. For them it absolutely is changing how books are sold, as before finding success on TikTok, they literally weren’t selling much of anything.
As the article mentions, romance authors are doing the best, but there are authors like AP Beswick (writes dark fantasy retellings of popular legends) who have gone full time indie off the back of TikTok sales.
Maybe they would have been successful without TikTok, but right now it’s how they find an audience.
Yeah, it seems like non-news. Any popular site is going to share opinions and product reviews. It doesn't seem like TikTok is especially effective here, it is just popular.
There are lots of ways to buy books that aren’t clicking affiliate links.
I see book recommendations on HN all the time and regularly buy something I see… by searching Amazon or a local store, nobody would ever link that purchase back to HN.
>but the article just feels like the publishers are rushing to jump
this is just the standard playbook for all social media though. it doesn't matter if your message is true or not. just say your message boldly and keep repeating it ad nauseam. people will promote it, and followers will follow it. as long as a follower likes the person saying it, it will be believed. if the viewer doesn't like the speaker, it will be hated.
I want to share a behind the scenes story in Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, which relates directly to the subject of this article. Douyin decided to test out its own e-commerce platform, in an alternative to handing over its users to prominent retailers like Taobao and JD.com. They planned to test the water with one category at a time, starting with books.
Douyin worked with major publishers to offer their products on their e-commerce platform. The day they began selling books on their own platform, Taobao's book sales immediately plummeted by half. To everyone's surprise, users were reading and buying more books thanks to Douyin.
The story ends with Jack Ma, the founder of Taobao, arriving at Bytedance HQ to strike a deal on further collaboration between Douyin and Taobao.
(person with funny user name tweets about how much they love a four-year-old book, tweet goes viral, book becomes the third most popular title on Amazon and a NYT bestseller, also the person who created the cartoon that the user name is a joke about ends up getting a copy too)
> E-books do not make such attractive visual props. According to a survey by Nielsen, 80% of Brits aged 14-25 prefer print.
As one of the central pillars of what TikTok is reportedly changing, it has extremely weak supporting evidence. How many outside of that age group prefer print? Is it also 80%? 90%? 50%?
I personally prefer physical copies as well due to DRM. I also like the physical appearance of being able to see all of the books I’ve read.
The other pillar seems to be virality which is likely far more relevant. And the article has some better examples of that.
I have way too many books in my house. For certain types of books I prefer a physical copy. But in general if I bring a physical book into the house, another one needs to go to my library’s annual book sale.
You can also lend out your physical copy to your friends later which happens a lot more thanks to booktok getting people in my peer group into the social aspect of reading and recommending books to one another.
Re: The unreasonable effectiveness of making an aspect of your life that's good for your mental health an aesthetic.
This stat seems very strange, especially considering that about 40% sales at some point for many popular new books are being attributed to Audible versions. Something smells here.
Maybe they "prefer" it, but still end up buying other versions for $reasons (space, cost, convenience).
I also "prefer" print editions in terms of a Platonic ideal of a book sense, but the last non-art-book I bought in print was Iain Banks last novel bought before he died in 2013, and I read that as an ebook - I bought the paper copy to complete the set only.
If I had infinite space, and never travelled, I might buy paper copies of every book I cared about. But I don't have infinite space, so I don't.
>Last year in Britain one in four book buyers used TikTok
What does that mean? Do they surveyed the buyers and 25% use TikTok? Is this data pointing at something different to say, IG users or other social media for book advertisers?
It feels like the entire article was someone scraping the barrel. This particular point is absolutely useless, it’s as useful as saying 25% of book readers also have a pet hamster.
I am 46yo. And I was in a reading slump for most of my fourties. I used to be an avid reader until I became a father and my 3 children began taking up more of my time. And I got a shorter attention span too.
I signed up for TT because my eldest child wanted an account and I wanted to see what he was sharing and seeing. He abandoned his account quite quickly, but I found fantasy booktok. And the Tiktokers' youthful enthusiasm was a big part of what got me out of my years-long reading slump.
I doubt if this happens often enough to be industry changing, but it does happen, even for someone very much outside the Tiktok demographic.
As an aside: where it does seem to have an influence is more people in the Dutch language zone reading books in English. I have been reading in English since I was 12 and at the time many people thought that was crazy. But nowadays every bookshop has a wall full of English Fantasy en YA books.
I like to view TikTok as a drug cartel. These recent PR efforts like their toddler reading commercial and this BookTok piece are roughly equivalent to when the drug cartels make a show of supporting the local pueblo with healthcare and other basic needs after cashing in on doping up the population.
> Why do you think that reading in general is good?
Attention span. For me, anyway.
I read LOTR as a kid in about 10 days. I tried re-reading it a few years ago and found I just couldn't keep my attention on the words for that long. Like social media and the mobile phone had rotted my ability to keep my attention on a single thing for hours.
I uninstalled social media (for other reasons, primarily mental health) and stopped using the phone so much, and managed to finish Wheel of Time (finally!).
> Why do you think that reading in general is good?
It exercises your imagination, your vocabulary, and ironically your writing ability. And that doesn't even count any new knowledge gained from books - not guaranteed with fiction, but it still happens quite often.
All skills which are valuable for the rest of your life too.
The bulk of what actually sells and gets read is deliberately written to be very easy to read and follow, to maximize potential market size. It’s a reaction to the shrinking size of the total market, and why YA and YA-reading-level books (if not nominally YA) now dominate. Been trending that way for 20 or so years.
“Any reading is good reading” is an attitude that’s true and useful for young kids, but is less true as they get older, and not true for most adults. At some age and level of development, reading the next Harry Potter prequel book isn’t any more improving than binging a middling TV series.
> is less true as they get older, and not true for most adults
Speaking anecdotally, many adults I know do not have the patience to read a book. Any book. (Of course, it’s because the book was badly written or facile or whatever.)
Oh yeah, the market’s dead. And what were the popular works before it died? Doorstop literary novels? Ovid in the original Latin? Nah, thin, trashy sci fi books and detective novels. Itty bitty black-hat-white-hat westerns. Plus romance, as ever.
Home video media took most of that market, by being a superior replacement for most of what people were buying and reading, for the purposes they were buying and reading it. Smartphones put the last nail in the coffin. Romance remains, and the rest of popular fiction can’t afford to limit its market if the publisher hopes to make money. You need to appeal to a lot of the remaining market, to make money, these days. These shifts in what gets published haven’t happened for no reason, they’re market-driven.
[edit] and, to head it off—I’ve evidently not done a good enough job of naming all the things I’m not claiming, in this thread, simply not-claiming them apparently being insufficient—no, I’m not especially worried about some crisis of literacy or moral or intellectual decline because of this. My whole point is that reading as an activity isn’t necessarily special or worthy of reverence. Replacing Zane Grey with Bonanza reruns is simply not an indicator of… anything important, really. Hell, even if film and TV are drawing, say, Woolf readers away from their books—what of it? It’s not as if there aren’t some sublime-as-hell, amazing films out there waiting for literature nerds to deep-read the shit out of them. That’s fine too! Reading. Is. Not. Special. Not inherently. And it doesn’t need to be. It can just be reading.
This attitude is why people stop reading when they become adults. It's no wonder people burn out of it so fast when you want it to literally be homework.
Like good god, easy to read should be a compliment to the author's ability to effectively communicate. They're books not puzzle boxes, calling "not easy to read" a virtue is absurd. Go read some bad fanfic and see for yourself how difficult to read and follow doesn't mean good.
Nobody said all reading had to be terribly beneficial. I just object to the idea that it necessarily is. That it’s not is fine.
Some folks claim it’s virtuous and better for you than, say, watching so-so TV shows, just because it’s READING, and I happen to think that’s plainly silly. And also that it’s fine that it’s largely not.
There are multiple ways I could have intended “easy to read”, and I mean that this, from the post I was responding to:
> It exercises your imagination, your vocabulary, and ironically your writing ability.
Is readily sacrificed, in most salable books, to avoid challenging the reader, because readers who don’t like to have any difficulty with a book are a much larger market than those who want that.
You would agree that “See Spot Run” may offer little improving to most adults, even if they enjoy reading it, yes? Then at most we disagree about where that line falls. But, again, it is fine if 40-year-olds like to read See Spot Run. There’s not anything wrong with it, it just bothers me when people paint reading as always some wholesome activity. It’s not—not always, probably not most of the time—but also that is OK.
> it just bothers me when people paint reading as always some wholesome activity
I'll actually take this position, I think reading (at least narrative) is always wholesome because it's necessarily an incomplete work of art that requires the reader to do a very real act of creation to make it whole. For some reason people decided that art -- drawing, dancing, making music, storytelling, writing poetry isn't just a thing humans do for leisure unless you're trying to get good at it. But reading as guided imagination and leads you to create whole worlds at every level at or above magic treehouse and flex those muscles.
And in exactly the same way because reading is an artistic endeavor you find people arguing that the only value in reading is to get better at it. Why? To what end? Do you talk about people's painting level being at a 7th grade level as telling of societal decline No, that's absurd but that's nonetheless the argument. And I guarantee your ability to understand and interpret fine art is at a grade school level but we've just decided that that's fine and you don't get judged for having art on your walls.
Are people taking my posts as judgmental? Maybe I’m writing them very poorly. It’s entirely fine to mostly or only read books that one finds comfortable and easy. That’s what most people do for most things, not just reading, as you point out. Most people are bad at most things. That’s how… things work. And it’s OK.
[edit] and, moreover, not everyone who can deeply appreciate acid jazz or whatever avoids listening to top 40s hits. That might even be most of what they listen to. To be clear, not everyone who reads easy books can’t read more challenging ones, and preferring easier ones is fine. My entire point was just that reading-is-necessarily-better is both wrong and a bit snobby, and that failing to read in a way that lives up to that cohort’s suppositions is entirely OK—reading can be taken off that bizarre pedestal and it’s still a fine activity.
What would you consider a better activity to recommend to them then?
After all, if they're having trouble comprehending anything but the most basic of tropes and vocabulary, they're not going to be going for thought provoking TV shows, let alone movies, plays, concerts, or Toastmasters.
It's worth remembering that the average reading comprehension level in the US is still around Grade 7, so these "See Spot Run" books you so kindly reductio ad absurdum the argument down to are still likely to provide value for a lot of people.
And finally, this is what even a very low level of reading comprehension can do for a person. Please don't skip it just because it's on TikTok; if you read, you'll not only appreciate but feel kinship with this man's journey.
Of course books that do stretch one’s boundaries may be instructive, or really, demonstrably beneficial, even if they’re not on some college reading list! Of course that isn’t strictly tied to age (though there will be a certain correlation).
I just mean that most adult fiction reading is adults reading YA because they want something easy that they don’t need to think much while reading, that doesn’t challenge them, often to the point of being written in the first person because it’s harder to track context in 3rd, and harder to orient oneself within a 3rd person narrative voice (not to overstate the difficulty, but it does require closer attention and asks more of the reader—and I’m not joking or pulling this out of no-where, ask some readers, ask some editors, ask some agents, enough of the market considers 3rd too hard to read and will skip books that aren’t in 1st, it’s a real consideration in planning a book). Or reading bodice-rippers literally written from a template (you don’t put out five novels a year without some effort toward developing efficiency). Or re-reading their favorite Harry Potter book for the sixth time.
What would I suggest instead? Anything else that’s not very challenging and passes the time pleasurably! Watch a reality show or whatever. The latest Netflix drama. Play some Super Mario Bros. These folks aren’t working their way up to “better” literature, they’re just having a good time. Which is ok!
Again, it’s not a problem that the activity is low-value if that’s what someone wants. It’s fine and normal to want easy entertainment, at least sometimes. Lots of adults read exclusively or almost-exclusively for that kind of low-effort entertainment, and that is OK. They don’t need to replace it with reading War and Peace or doing calculus problem sets or something. Those are probably “better” activities if your goal is improvement, assuming you’re ready for those kind of things. But that doesn’t need to be your goal, and it’s ok if that’s not what someone’s looking for in the books they read.
According to what sells, most people just want an easy story with few or no words they hadn’t learned by junior high, and a narrative that’s clear and leaves little to inference (and certainly doesn’t rely on it!) They want short sentences, that don’t force them to keep much context on their head.
They aren’t working their way up to works that might stretch their abilities, they’re looking for books comfortably within their existing abilities. And that is OK. But the notion that reading may take place that’s about as low-value as trash TV, and that that’s probably the majority of adult reading, seems to bother some enough that they want to paint reading as per se virtuous, valuable, et c. Meanwhile, it’s not any more so than listening to music is. Two people listen to several thousand hours of music, one comes out the other end able to hum Mmm Bop by Hansen, and that’s about the extent of what they took away; the other is familiar with the song and can also tell you how its rhythm is connected to Senegalese folk music and the harmonies reminiscent of early French polyphonic choral hymns. The music-listening wasn’t per se equally valuable from the widening-one’s-horizon perspective, but both may have enjoyed themselves. What’s weird is deciding to plaster “MUSIC LISTENER” on your tote bag as if that by itself means anything—for either of these subjects, really.
That so many folks end up with a fairly low reading level, as adults, is telling: if they remain readers regardless, as many do, they’re probably avoiding works that might force them to get better at it, or else surely they’d markedly improve over decades. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that most folks also stop getting much better at math around 7th or 8th grade, it’s just that for whatever reason we see admitting that as Ok and admitting to being a poor reader as nearly unthinkable. I think that’s about the time both get really uncomfortable for a lot of kids, and they realize they can just stop and skate by on what they have, and they’re not really wrong. I don’t think most of them who nonetheless enjoy reading are working toward tougher books any more than I think someone who likes sudoku puzzles is working toward solving PDEs. And that’s fine.
You really should write a book with your analysis of the human condition. I have never seen so many sweeping generalities and hidden stereotypes in my life.
I think I was a bit harsh in my words, sorry about that. I just see a lot of instances of "most ..." "many people" "some people" etc followed by some generic observation that I don't think always has enough supporting evidence or is just completely subjective.
Yeah, it’s mostly based on talking to a lot of readers, writers, editors, and literature teachers, and seeing how the market’s going and what players in it are doing to try to stay relevant. I’ve not conducted some kind of study on this and it’s certainly possible I’m bubble-bound in some of it (though I think my bubble leans rather the opposite way, if anything…?) but do think it’s more-or-less accurate. I dunno, I could be wrong about a lot of it. I don’t get the impression that a great majority of reading that occurs is some elevated activity any more than I get the impression most TV-viewing is—I also don’t think that state of affairs is bad, to be clear, or that it’s bad to enjoy the literary equivalent of a Hallmark movie—but it’s possible I’m wrong and there really is good cause to call out reading as a notably improving activity, without qualification.
It’s touched by subjectivity, to be sure, but I’ve tried to dial in my level of sweeping-statement so they’re only as sweeping as I think probably correct (those “some”s and “many”s and “most”s) but sure, in the end it’s what I see from where I sit, not a behavioral study.
No worries about the tone, I screwed this whole thread up by having a tone in my initial post that many read (not without reason!) as implying some stuff I didn’t write, and did not intend to imply, but did. Mea culpa.
I wish I could up vote this multiple times. I've received so many "heavy" recommendations in my 20s and 30s, from people who read (at most) 1-2 books per year. Some people I know have stopped reading altogether, since they can't find the energy to get through "edifying" material.
If that resonates, my unsolicited advice is to:
1. Read for fun. If you're you're going to nosh some brain junk food, it might as well be a book. Enjoy it!
2. Don't be afraid to stop reading one book so you can start another.
I've seen so many people try to finish a book they're not enjoying, then stop reading altogether.
3. Once you've (re)cultivated a habit of reading, you might have more tenacity for that hallowed "edifying" material. I'm reading and noodling on "Tensor Calculus for Physics" exercises as a bedtime activity, but that was preceded by months of reading YA spec/sci fiction to unwind.
> “Any reading is good reading” is an attitude that’s true and useful for young kids, but is less true as they get older, and not true for most adults.
Stop that. That kind of gatekeeping is why people don’t read.
Reading doesn’t have to be good, in the way people mean when they try to paint reading as good, is the thing. Not more so than anything else. It’s usually not, and that’s ok. I’m advocating the opposite of gatekeeping.
Nobody makes these weird claims about how great and beneficial watching TV is, but people do it anyway. I think some of us failing to over-praise reading isn’t why people don’t read.
It’s not my problem, as I’ve enthusiastically agreed with you in multiple posts in this thread.
I think treating reading as necessarily some kind of “elevated” activity is weird and incorrect. It’s not, necessarily. It’s often in fact not. And yet one can still read, and enjoy it, that being the case. Folks can, should, and do read whatever they please, for a whole bunch of purposes. And I don’t have a problem with that. It’d be strange if I did, being one of those same folks who reads for a whole bunch of purposes.
I’m rebutting the notion that books have to be improving. They often really, really aren’t. And that’s fine, we don’t need to pretend the activity’s always morally superior to binging Stranger Things or something. It’s often not, and there’s nothing wrong with that. The “readers are special” faction is who I’ve got beef with, to the extent I have any.
I have read this thread again and we are in complete agreement. I initially thought you were arguing that useless reading was pointless and shouldn't be done.
I too have beef with the "readers are special" faction but I think its a more general faction we should have concern about - people who make something their entire identity. Then self-esteem is tied to that activity and now that by default means its more prestigous or intellectual or important or what have you.
For what it's worth, I think a book can still be improving even if its written in simplistic language and grammer because a book has the ability to tell a story from another humans perspective. We all lack that ability and I think we all could use a bit more empathy in our lives.
Yeah, re-reading it, that first post of mine could have been better. I don’t write that reading cotton-candy fiction is bad, but it could be read as implying it. It’s not bad, it’s just that it’s also not better than a bunch of other activities just because it’s reading. Most reading that happens (the optional reading, anyway) isn’t some lofty activity that’s a ton “better” than, say, watching TV. And that is ok.
> Then self-esteem is tied to that activity and now that by default means its more prestigous or intellectual or important or what have you.
I’m sure motivations vary, but I definitely get a sense of insecurity behind a lot of the “look at me, I’m a reader! You should be a reader too, reading makes you better!” stuff. Which, fine, whatever, but I’m sure there are a few folks out there who buy that messaging while not managing to get into reading for pleasure, and who feel bad about it, but they really shouldn’t. Can you truly expand your horizons and, maybe even, a little, become a better person through reading or whatever else it is that people suppose reading does that’s good for you? Yeah, I think so. I’d agree with that. I think I’ve gotten a lot of good out of many books I’ve read. Is that what most folks are up to most of the time they’re reading? LOL no. What’s got more viewers, the latest sublime, expertly crafted, dense, soul-scouring, literary-and-literate gem of a Cannes darling (“and this one’s really good, I swear, it’s not just award bait”), or the latest Marvel movie? How many who watch the latter will watch a single film this year that really demands their full attention and yields more and more good Zen food (if you will) the harder you interrogate it? Not many. Reading’s the same. Which is Ok!
> For what it's worth, I think a book can still be improving even if its written in simplistic language and grammer because a book has the ability to tell a story from another humans perspective. We all lack that ability and I think we all could use a bit more empathy in our lives.
One of my sins in this thread is that I’ve been sloppy with implying “hard-to-read language” means “good book”. To be clear, I definitely don’t think a book must be good if the language is complex or “elevated”, and I don’t think all good books have complex language. I do think some excellent books with complex or elevated language couldn’t be much simplified without doing them great violence—that they really needed the complexity, by which I don’t necessarily mean opaque Finnegan’s Wake stuff, but maybe just something a tad trickier than Goosebumps. What I do think is that really good books are usually harder to read, and harder to appreciate, in some sense, than the average airport novel, but that can be because a bunch of what they’re doing has to do with things many readers aren’t tuned-in to (theme, careful word choice that you’ll miss if you’re not reading closely, really subtle character work, that kind of thing), or because it assumes certain background reading has been done to get the full effect, or something of that sort—and maybe, but not necessarily, also because it includes sentences with multiple clauses, and more-than-rarely employs paragraphs longer than a quarter-page with little repetition or restatement of context, in which you’ll get lost if you’re used to skimming.
Meanwhile, I genuinely love a few picture books that can’t have more than a few hundred words each, and think they’re truly great. Can they do as much as a stompin’ big novel? Can they do the same things? Nah, but I mean hell, how many stuffy literature teachers have assigned Le Petit Prince? More than zero, and with good reason. I’ll gladly read Madeline solo, slowly, drinking in the words and pictures, and kinda meditate on life—that thing’s a whole mood. Good shit. Not everything with simple language is bad, and nothing’s bad just because the language is simple.
… and, just because this thread’s been a mess in part due to my sloppiness, the above is not intended as some exhaustive exploration of all the ways and for-whom a book might be either good or bad. I have not covered every corner of that topic, and I know it. :-)
> It exercises your imagination, your vocabulary, and ironically your writing ability.
That strongly depends on what you are reading and what your average level of education is. And considering we are talking about Booktok and UK, or any other country with similar levels of education, I'm not really sure if this is even remotely true. Booktok seems to favor more trashy, silly books, not the kind of content which will enrich your vocabulary or imagination. And I'm saying this as someone who also likes to read such trashy content.
Considering that the average reading comprehension level in the US is 7th Grade, I think we're fine recommending that people read - even if they're reading trashy books.
> Why do you think that reading in general is good?
Seriously? To quote Voltaire's Philosophical Dictionary:
>> You despise books; you whose lives are absorbed in the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence; but remember that all the known world, excepting only savage nations, is governed by books.
Voltaire lived in a time, where education was a privilege and most books had a decent level of quality, in relation to their time. Not so true anymore for everything we have today. Books for "the vanities of ambition, the pursuit of pleasure or indolence" are pretty common today.
Hate to break it to you, but we still live in a time where education is a privilege. Reading is a very good activity to partake in for countless reasons.
If you’re worried about people being discouraged from finding good literature, I promise that the gatekeeping attitude you’re perpetuating is way more damaging than a group of online book lovers
> Hate to break it to you, but we still live in a time where education is a privilege.
Not in Voltaire's country France, or most other democratic countries. And I'm talking about the average education available to all citizen, so school, not university. And yes, there are of course exceptions even with school, but those are for other reasons.
But that's the point, with any somewhat rich country, the level of education is high enough, that a generalization on the benefits of reading which Voltaire is talking about, are not valid anymore, because we now have them, and are on the point of moving on. And this is especially valid for the young generations.
> I promise that the gatekeeping attitude you’re perpetuating is way more damaging than a group of online book lovers
How am I gatekeeping? I'm just describing the reality and speak against the delusion of gatekeepers. Reading today is not anymore the great awesome enlightenment it was in the past.
> But that's the point, with any somewhat rich country, the level of education is high enough, that a generalization on the benefits of reading which Voltaire is talking about, are not valid anymore, because we now have them, and are on the point of moving on. And this is especially valid for the young generations.
> Reading today is not anymore the great awesome enlightenment it was in the past.
I can't roll my eyes far enough to express the magnitude of unabashed, pubescent hubris underlying this perspective.
Interesting to me because I was just reading an article from an agent that said TikTok doesn't sell books at all.
Both articles are probably wrong. As with anything, it's not so cut and dry.
The fact that people who are in the business of selling books are failing at monetizing TikTok while lots of people who are buying books are getting recs from TikTok is every signal you need.
TT has somehow managed to grow supermassive while also feeling like the small web of yore. Nothing gold can stay but here's hoping they keep
it up for a bit longer.
I did find out that the John Dies At the End author (Jason Pargin, aka Cracked editor David Wong) has a new book out by finding him on TikTok, but most authors aren't going to be interesting enough to really get a following that way. Also even though I listen to his Tiktok before going to sleep most days, I never bought the book.
By refusing to sacrifice your attention on the altar of TikTok, you've offended the Technogod, and will be banished to the hell of eternal captchas, until the end of the ages.
The #BookTok category in my library is my go-to for fresh reads. This year alone, I've already devoured:
* They Both Die at the End, Adam Silvera
* Books #1-5 of Loise Penny's Gamache series (detective serial set in rural Montreal)
* Piranesi, Susanna Clarke
* When Women Were Dragons, Kelly Bar Hill
* Books #1-3 in Naomi Novik's Scholomance series
* Babel, R.F. Kiang
* The Cartographers, Peng Shepherd
* Books #1-2 in Olivie Blake's Atlas series
* Books #1-3 in Sylvain Neuval's Themis Files series
* The Memory Police, Yoko Ogawa
* Gods of Jade and Shadow, Silvia Moreno Garcia
and the list keeps going. I haven't read this avidly since high school (20 years ago). The recommendations coming out of BookTok are unabashedly entertaining, fun, and quick reads. Perfect for unwinding in the evening, instead of vegging out in front of the tube.
I really struggle with this list, for me, the books that stayed with me aren't on BookTok. Albeit for me, it's because these books are challenging on a craft/architectural level.
The Spear Cuts Through Water by Simon Jimenez is a time travel story, kind of, through the lens of a descendant of the protagonists of the main novel, kind of. It's a fantastical ancient story told to a descendant by an aging relative in relatively modern day, and while that story is told it is also told to the reader as if it's actually happening, and then timelines are crossed over.
The Saint of Bright Doors by Vajra Chandrasekera is about a guy who starts a support group for the almost-chosen-- people who, by happenstance, weren't chosen by prophecies. Like literally it's like "yeah, so my sister was chosen to herald the apocalypse, but I still have visions of angels and I have to drink myself to sleep", "yeah, my cousin was chosen to kill my godfather, I'm just stuck with chainsaws for hands". But it's much more dissociated, and much more unattached-- and the reason for this becomes clear at the very end.
I recently finished The Archive Undying by Emma Meiko Candon. That book is full of characters with ambiguous identities, characters with ambiguous motives-- everyone is hiding who they are from everyone else, not in a murder mystery way but in a complex conspiracy format where everyone actually has their own mini-conspiracy going on. Of course this is in the context of "giant mech-god corpse is being resurrected to fight mech-god monsters", so there's a fundamental awesomeness. But, y'know, when god-AIs can jack into your brain, or connect brains to each other, or jack into each other, the story can no longer hold linearity in an easy sip read.
hmm, I know people brag about books they haven't actually read, but Book #3 of the Atlas Series is not out until January. (kidding, I assume it's a typo)
Not actually on Booktok myself, but if it's pushing people towards R.F. Kuang and Susanna Clark then it's a-ok by me - read the Poppy War series while you wait for The Atlas Complex.
My SO got TikTok for this reason. There’s a big community on it for reviewing the latest fiction and YA novels. I suppose many readers aren’t looking for lengthy reviews when they choose what to read next, but rather a person suggesting related content to a genre they enjoy.
This is easy to understate, given how panned fiction and YA both are in other venues. Even Reddit's /r/books is (and long has been) absurdly stuck up when it comes to YA novels.
Dear YA prudes, remember that Heinlein and Asimov (and so many others) wrote books aimed at that demographic too.
#BookTok is a fairly large community. Recommendations move needles. The Barnes and Nobles near where I live has a "Recommended by TikTok" section. Most of the people that read and talk about books (for enjoyment) reference TikTok to some degree. This isn't to say they are all content creators. Simply put, that makes as much sense as me saying "I didn't think users of HN read books."
The remaining tatters of the once-robust market for books rests among folks who are probably rather less-intellectual than you’re supposing book readers to be.
