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Some people go on TikTok to see funny clips of dogs popping out of watermelons, learn new dances or discover cooking hacks.
Others are there to get book recommendations — using the hashtag #BookTok.
These recommendations tend to skew toward young-adult fiction novels — and have contributed to a nearly 70% increase in demand for the year to date through April compared to the previous year, according to data from the NPD Group.
More than 10 million young-adult fiction novels were sold over that period. That’s a new record from 2014, when 8 million copies of young-adult fiction books were sold, according to NPD.
“Even more notable is that this growth is occurring even without movie tie-ins that have driven the category in the past,” NPD said in a report published Tuesday.
Two of the most-read books so far this year are “They Both Die at the End” by Adam Silvera, a 2017 thriller about two strangers who both find out they have one day left to live, and “We Were Liars” by E. Lockhart, a suspenseful 2014 novel documenting a group of family friends’ vacation on a private island.
Silvera himself is on TikTok (@adamsilvera) and has nearly 13,000 followers.
“This is the first time we’ve seen an organic, social-media phenomenon push backlist books spontaneously back onto the bestseller lists without any kind of marketing or sales push from publishers,” said Kristen McLean, a books industry analyst for NPD.
“While still in its early days, we’re encouraged by the potential of this growing trend when it comes to new paths of discovery for the young-adult fiction market.”
As for the non-TikTok crowd? Over the course of this year, children’s books such as “Dog Man: Mothering Heights,” a graphic children’s novel illustrated and written by Dav Pilkey, have risen to the top of the ranks.
Meanwhile, adults are reading travel books and murder mysteries, like “The Guest List” by Lucy Foley, according to the recommendation engine TasteDive.
Among New Yorkers, the most-read book since the pandemic began was Brit Bennett’s “The Vanishing Half,” a work of historical fiction spanning the 1950s through ’90s that explores race and identity. HBO
T,
recently acquired the rights to produce a limited series based on the book.
