Knowing Your Audience: How to Write for #BookTok
By Kait Ballenger
Character skits. Aesthetic videos. Shelf trophies and…masked men? #Booktok can be a confusing crowd for those unfamiliar with it.
But in a publishing climate where influencers reign supreme and book sales are increasingly fueled by social media virality, what’s an author to do?
The answer lies in knowing your audience.
First, let me say that I think anyone who doesn’t enjoy #BookTok, shouldn’t be trying to write for it. If you find yourself scrolling through the app and endlessly cringing, or worse, scratching your head in confusion, #BookTok isn’t for you. And that’s okay.
Like all readerships and publishing trends, not every audience is for every writer, and one of our primary goals as authors is to know our audience. We need to curate the stages we stand on.
But if you’re pleasantly surprised about #BookTok, love scrolling the app, or happily curious about how to approach its readership, then read on.
What is #BookTok?
#BookTok is a hashtag (read: subcategory) of TikTok, a sound and music driven social media app, that prioritizes and curates video content.
Like all social media, TikTok’s purpose is to connect people (and advertise, but that’s an article for another time) and its #BookTok audience is no different.
#BookTok is readers connecting with readers. Its authors connecting with readers and doing so in a reader focused space.
Understanding the #BookTok Crowd
#Booktok’s audience is primarily made up of younger Millennials, Gen Z, and older Gen Alpha readers looking for the next addition to their never-ending TBR pile or wanting to share their love of stories and books with others. So many #Booktokers talk about the joy of finding community with other like-minded reader friends.
But its audience becomes more and more specific the further you get into the app. It’s divided by subgenre, demographics, and even microtropes—all the way down to timing how quick you hit that like button or scroll.
For example, I write dark romantasy, and my personal #BookTok feed curates that content for me. It can lead me down a path to either romantasy, dark romance, or ideally, both.
So, your specific #BookTok feed will eventually end up curated to you and your interests.
There is no one #Booktok crowd. There are many.
Using #BookTok as Research
If you like #BookTok and enjoy scrolling through the app, it can be a treasure trove for reader research.
Start by scrolling through the app. Find book related videos—ideally ones made by readers, not other writers—that appeal to you and keep narrowing down your search from there.
Find the hashtags you like. See how readers are talking about the themes and tropes of your subgenre. Note what books are popular and doing well. Go read those books and see what all the excitement is about and engage as a positive and supportive part of your specific #BookTok community.
Curating the Stages You Stand On
Once you’ve done all the research into what readers are looking for, it’s tempting to start scrolling through #Booktok, or any social media app for that matter, and start mentally curating a list of all the current, popular trends and convince yourself that those themes and tropes will make readers fall in love. If you could just add in the popular trope of the week to your work-in-progress, you’ll be an instant bestseller, right?
Morally gray hero? Check.
Lots of spice? Check.
Make it romantasy? Check. Or better yet, dark romance? Check.
But what I learned from writing my newest release, Original Sinner, a dark romantasy, where Lucifer and the other seven deadly sins are billionaire celebrities in a God-abandoned New York City, is that knowing how to write for any audience is about taking what you need and leaving what you don’t behind; writing what you love will help you find your audience.
If you love morally gray heroes, write one.
If you swoon (in a good way) over lots of spice, burn up those pages with your character’s chemistry.
If you love genre mashups, mash away.
But if you don’t love those things, the answer is simple: don’t do it.
Don’t write something you don’t want to write.
Don’t write something you don’t want to read.
Don’t write something just because you think it’s going to be popular or because everyone else is doing it.
Trends come and go—#BookTok is only the latest—but the time and labor we pour into our work isn’t something we can get back, and by the time you get that book to press, most likely, whatever trend you were chasing will already be long gone.
So, my best advice is this: write the trend, but only if you love it.
Write it because you can’t imagine writing anything else.
Write it because you enjoy it, and you don’t care if anyone else does.
Because ultimately, we write for ourselves first and for our readers second, and part of knowing how to appeal to any crowd is knowing how to confidently stand in your own expert decision-making.
So, write your book for you, and then market it to #BookTok, only if you choose.
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You can sign up for her newsletter or find her on TikTok @kaitballenger and Instagram @kait.ballenger
Seven deadly—and ultrarich—sins rule NYC, and though she came here to escape her past, one woman’s true path to freedom might be the devil’s bonds in this scorching hot romantasy from Kait Ballenger.
The seven deadly sins keep high profiles in the Big Apple: Lust runs brothels, Sloth’s a media streamer…you get the picture. Pride, though, he’s more mysterious. You might know him as Lucifer—temptation irresistibly embodied. The paparazzi are dying for some burning-hot gossip. So when someone publishes my scathing but private rant about him, they eat it up. And now my job is on the line. After all, he is my boss.
With his vicious siblings vying for his power, Lucifer needs to distract the press, so he reframes my tirade as a lovers’ spat, demanding I play the devil’s fiancée. I need to be a good girl, smile for the cameras, nothing more.
But cocky and cruel as he is, his darkness awakens something wicked in me. Sexy and in control, he might just be the cure—an extra dose of sin to heal me from a lifetime of shame and subservience.
Category: How To and Tips, On Writing
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