TO BOOKTOK, FROM READERS 📱📚 let’s discuss

TO BOOKTOK, FROM READERS 📱📚 let’s discuss

🍿 Relevant videos and playlists

#booktok #fromreaders #trends

[TheBookThing]

On the point of irate fans feeling their favourite author has been plagarised/ripped-off, I'm always reminded of Terry Pratchett who was confronted by an angry Harry Potter fan who said that his Unseen University was just a rip-off of Hogwarts. He politely pointed out that his Discworld books predated Harry Potter by about 15 years.

The fan then huffed "Oh so I suppose you're saying JK Rowling ripped you off?".

"No" replied Practhett "there's just some things in fantasy like magical schools that are generic. That's why it's called a genre"

[starmanthelizard]

Timestamp 45:00 about booktok bringing minors into it: I've seen booktok people harass a minor, boy, because he looked like someone booktok would eat up, or because he looked like a character in this spicy book they read. The boy got so uncomfortable and stated many times to leave him alone because he's a minor and these adult booktokers would not leave him alone. It was baffling. Similar thing to the Wade Wilson situation, the irl murderer that some booktokers fell in love with because he looked like a guy straight out of a spicy book

[MsNikkyD]

We need to normalise dual ratings for books. A quality rating and an enjoyment rating. That way we can differentiate between bad books that we love, and also good books that we hate.

[jellybebe]

Me, watching this despite not being on TikTok: Hmm, yes. Quite.

[DisneyMarvelHarryPotter]

You're seriously like the sweetest YouTuber on the platform. Everything you say is either positive, welcoming and inclusive to all readers, writers, and whoever else, or kindly put constructive criticism where you seem just a bit worried about offending someone without appearing overly anxious or apologetic for the community. You discussing how you want everyone to feel welcome on your channel was so nice.

[goodmanticore]

You’re totally right about the use of the word “trash.” I see comments here saying “guilty pleasure” and I think that’s a much better way to have put it. I tend to call a lot of my favorite things “trash” as a catch-all because it’s a silly word.

[AntipaladinPedigri]

13:20 Yes, this is exactly it. Getting prople to view more than one loop is boosting engagement, so tiktokers make the ending loop seamlessly into the beginning to dupe out several more watches.

[jasminehanson]

I’ve been an avid reader for quite a long time. I find that most of my books that I get recommended via social media or book groups I tend to enjoy less because I’m going into it knowing more than just the summary on the back. As a kid/teen I went into every book “blind” and I found I enjoyed that way more. I do think that social media does have positive influence as far as I had never read science fiction until I saw your video on the winnowing flame trilogy, and I absolutely loved it. To me, it’s coming down to how much do you actively seek your own content with no influence and how often do you get things recommended to you from people who may or may not have a good way to explain why they enjoyed a book.

[sandraschafskaese]

OMG, yes! The squandered potential for a big chunk of romantasy is killing me. The lack of polish in traditionally published books is borderline inexcusable to me. It just makes authors look bad when they simply needed a few more rounds of editing and a professional editors eye. Edits make a world of difference to books.

[randomthoughts]

3:34 i think the thing about this point, the whole romantasy vs fantasy this is that fantasy puts more emphasis on the worldbuilding/plot rather than the romance. Ive read plenty of fantasy stories with romances i actively enjoyed! The thing that gets me about romantasy is that a lot of these stories sound so incredibly interesting plotwise and have the potential to be great, but end up being a backdrop to a (usually) cishet romance with two white characters.

[noelanikaanana]

A trend I feel needs to be explored more, similar to indie to trad published book edits, is special edition. I feel more emphasis seems to be on creating and owning the best looking book verse the best story.

Love the Luna cameo at the end ❤

I vote for both formats. Unedited is fun for the raw reaction but edited allows more conversation.

[She-wolf]

I like romance in my stories; however, I want the romance to be a product of the plot. I don't want my plot to be a product of the romance.

[antivancrowe]

Sometimes I think people don’t understand their fyp on TikTok. I really like queer romance and fantasy so when you like a type of video on there it gives you more of that video. Sometimes you need to search for your types of reads and that way you won’t always get like forbidden romance type of books that people always attribute to TikTok. The search bar is your friend! I also feel like there are just so many books and so many people that TikTok is just making it visible. I am 31, when I was like a teenager none of this was available and the only thing I knew to find a book was to go to the library since we didn’t have much money growing up so just seeing this amount of information on books come up now just brings emotion to me about just making all these books known. Thank you for not just shitting on TikTok though I really appreciated your nuance.

[almostatami]

Those videos of people concealing the book cover until the very end drive me crazy. 😂

[Linklex]

I think people don’t mind Romance, the problem comes with Romance becomes the sole focus of something we were told it wouldn’t be the focus of. Look at the DC/CW shows like Arrow & Flash. What’s the biggest complaint people have about those shows? The Romance drama overshadows everything else on these shows. The superhero stuff is relegated to the B of even C plot. Romance always seems to be the one genre that sneaks in there as oppose to horror or comedy.

[samsparks]

Booktok has always gotten on my nerves.

[TheBookHermie]

You might want to chat with Read with Dr B... She's a psychologist that reads all sorts but likes dark romance. Love this series concept!

[KatallinaVT]

A romance's core responsibility is to present a happy ever after or happy for now ending. A love story has no obligation to do that. Christine Feehan (Dark series) is romance. Nicholas Sparks writes love stories. That's how I've always understood it, at least.

[infinitecurlie]

The Romantasy irks me because I don't see it as fantasy and I wish that it had its own section or that it was in the romance section.

I'm trying to write a Dark Fantasy book and I'm anxious that they're going to want to try to change my story for it to be "spicy" when there is zero romance in it and I have no desire to write romance.

And also since I'm a woman, people are going to assume that I'm writing Romantasy (another commentator on this video said that they skip over female authors because they assume that it's romance heavy and tbh I think that's sexist because it groups all female fantasy authors as smut writers) when I'm not, and it's like do I go with a male pen name so that people take me seriously? Even when I'm doing my best to make sure that the book cover is dark and that the premise screams this is *DARK*? Idk and it's so frustrating. 🙄

(Also there's this huge deal with people getting attacked for sharing a negative book review. But whether if a review is negative or positive, it's valid and people should be able to talk about it).

[morganjones]

I am 21 year old reader and end up finding videos/creators on booktok that I liked and some I didn't. I also really like booktube and I would agree they both have different roles and those roles work differently for different people. I go to youtube for recommendations more often then booktok and booktok for relatability for books.
I noticed there is a generalization of the way booktok is presumed to be 'these kinds of books" because those videos tend to be most popular. Though I have found pretty popular booktoker's who read books more similar to my taste (which is similar to your taste, lol). but yeah-- I think it's a bit sad how narrow of a lens people see booktok when booktok is really anyone who reads and wants to share their thoughts on booktok--- it isn't representative of all romantasy and dark romantance books as many people assume.
Totally off note--- but I really like talking to people who enjoy reading different genres than me. I feel I can learn from them and them from me (maybe). I will watch booktok to understand and learn from different readers since there hasn't really bit a great variety of book recs in the genres I'm interested in that I haven't read yet.
Thinking that writers are stealing the concepts of fae courts is WILD/ lol. I've read books older than this series that included fae courts. if you look at older fantasy stories with fae, they include fae courts (not all, but many. First two that came to mind was the Shadowhunter Chronicles and 13 Treasures). If you look it up, its a very old concept----as far back as the middle ages if potentially farther.