Books
For writers likeSweetbittersStephanie Danler, BookTok presents a more existential problem.
Like everyone with a soul, my relationship with social media is fraught and ambivalent.
When I started my professional Instagram account in 2015, it wasnt casual.
No, the thing I do singularly well is read.
So I started using that page as a place to talk about books and poems I love.
No one in publishing knew what to make of it.
Did these posts translate to sales?
Was it the equivalent of taking out a magazine ad, the more eyes the better?
Did author engagement enhance or hinder it?
I had nothing to do with early fans of the book posting about it.
It was organic, spontaneous, and frankly surprising.
But when those readers eventually made their way to my page, it wasnt to talk aboutSweetbitter.
They came to see the book recommendations.
It falls under the depressing edict that having a social media presence is prerequisite to the publishing of books.
Eventually, I, too, decided to join TikTok.
And after I did, a dozen people asked if my agent told me I should join the app.
My response: What agent would say that?
It wasnt my agent.
She believes thats where the smartest, funniest, most incisive content lives.
I made a joke that I could create an OnlyFans page of me silently reading my favorite books.
It didnt feel like the worst idea.
My fluency with Bookstagram and the thinking it requires seemed to make me a natural fit for BookTok.
After lurking, hemming, and hawing,I decided to participate: I did not speak.
I did not dance.
I read a book I think is worth reading.
I like that TikTok is messier than its still-life cousin Instagram.
But I kept wondering… where are the books?
Every time I went on TikTok looking for books, it seemed impossible to discoverdifferentfiction.
), youre not in the club.Where are the accounts talking about dead authors?
Books from indie publishers, like Catapult, Milkweed, Soft Skull, and Wave?
After a month of my own posts and engagement, more literary content was fed to me.
Apparently, I was looking forLit Girl Aesthetic,which made me briefly want to die.
But my inability to get hooked on BookTok actually has more to do with the way the app works.
That its not a social media app but an entertainment app.
On it, you cant just show a book by Clarice Lispector.
The successful accountsperformedbeing a woman who reads Clarice Lispector.
Being visible on these apps is antithetical to the act of writing.
The former breaks down the precious isolation required for the latter.
It breaks the spell of possession our characters cast over us.
Its a performance not meant for the public gaze.
I do not see a home for myself as a BookToker.
I am afraid that I dont know how to both genuinely read, and imitate myself reading.
Though maybe Im afraid Idoknow how to do it.