TikTok’s Penguin Random House Collab Has BookTok Creators Worried – Rolling Stone

No one saw BookTok coming. The TikTok community dedicated to readers was an organic effort that seemed to explode overnight, creating trends and an entirely new way to promote books on digital platforms. Less than two years after its creation, BookTok has been credited for directly increasing print sales across the United States, leaving publishers desperate to utilize BookTok's energy for new releases. But a wave of creators say a new feature between TikTok and conglomerate Penguin Random House doesn't celebrate BookTok - it's a first attempt to exploit it.

In September, publishing company Penguin Random House announced a collaboration with TikTok allowing users to link books directly in the app, with the goal of expanding the community's reach. The new BookTok feature combines information on a book and all of the videos about it into one central location. Isaac Bess, a spokesperson for TikTok, tells Rolling Stone that the link aspect was created to "to take book discovery and content creation to the next level." The problem? You can only link to books published by Penguin Random House, which many creators say will lead to more exclusion for smaller writers, and less pay for BookTok.