Bestseller best Practices: A digital ethnography of #BookTok content on TikTok

This research employed a mixed methods digital ethnography to analyze BookTok, the subcommunity about books on TikTok. Grounded in the theory of affordances (Ronzhyn et al., 2022) and Uses and Gratifications Theory (Katz et al., 1973-1974), the study examined the frequencies of varying poster roles, book genres, and content categories in the subcommunity, as well as associations between all of those variables. In doing so, this research added to theoretical understandings about social media while also expanding TikTok research and knowledge about the wider book industry and marketplace. While making similar types of content overall, the findings demonstrated that the authors’ behavior diverged from that of more general users, like readers, as readers are recommending on BookTok more than authors are promoting. This indicates that readers, who are outside of the authors’ control, are an important component of book marketing on BookTok. Posters’ recommendations included memes, comedic content, accessories, etc.