Not only are people buying more books, but they are also talking about them more often, in more venues. BookTok helped sell about 20 million books in 2021, more than 2.4% of book sales for that year. The #booktok hashtag has more than 200 billion views on TikTok, which is like saying every person in the world has viewed the hashtag 25 times.
Confession: I've never looked at that hashtag in its home environment, on TikTok. I'm not interested in another blippy platform. I'm looking instead for longform conversations about books. Conversations like that are getting easy to find.
What is 500 Words by Lee Schneider?
500 Words is a companion podcast to the 500 Words newsletter, written by Lee Schneider. It features blogs and newsletter read by the author. Past seasons have featured short-form interviews with creative folks from film, music, design, multi-media and more.