Sometimes I forget that I live in this little microcosm of booktok and there are things that have become the norm that really just… aren’t to everyone else, so I thought it’d be fun to make a little list about the world I love so much.

Reading 50 + books a year isn’t normal

I told someone at work that I’d ‘only read 27 books this year’ and they were like, ‘only?!’, I’m so used to booktok where some people read that in two months or less and I’m always in the lower numbers for my yearly read count… turns out the rest of the world spends more time in reality.

Buying more books than you can possibly read in a lifetime, isn’t normal

Not everyone has groaning, over filled book shelves, go figure.

Having very deep discussions about and strong emotional ties to a fictional person, isn’t normal

For real, people have got some feelings and they feel them loudly on tiktok. It’s amazing.

I may be one of them…

The sheer ferociousness of the booktok fandoms isn’t normal

I dare you to make a tiktok insulting a character from ACOTAR. I. Dare. You.

The relationships with a book’s author, isn’t normal

Kind of like Neil Gaiman on twitter, or John Green on Tumblr, the level of access and dialogue with the authors of our favourite books is un-paralleled! Also, they are a lot more accessible, I would never have the guts to tag an author or instagram or twitter but I will happily do it on Tiktok, the vibe is just different.

The specificity of the tropes and genres, isn’t normal

Tropes such as ‘one bed trope where his laugh rumbles through her chest and one of them has a nightmare and the other wakes them up and comforts them’

It gets super specific and it’s extremely helpful.

The access to books by author’s who wouldn’t have otherwise shared the limelight, isn’t the norm

Lets face it, institutionally, publishing houses are still need to make a little progress in sharing voices of underrepresented minorities and groups. Whereas tiktok has given indie authors and trad published authors who get less promotion a platform from which to reach the audience on a very real level.

The diligence surrounding books with representation and diversity, isn’t the norm

In fact, I am used to a book rec/ review tokker flagging how much diversity (or lack thereof) a book has, in their review of it but outside of this sphere, it is happening a lot less.

The care reviewers and author’s take to flag trigger warnings, isn’t the norm

Once again, I’m so used to it on tiktok, to the point where I can tell if the author is a TikTok user because they will include in the amazon and Goodreads synopsis.

The power of what the consumer actually wants, isn’t the norm

Literally cannot emphasise enough the impact Booktok has on the publishing industry and book sales right now. The power is properly in the hands of the consumer now.

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