TikTok's innovative new idea: printing books on paper
Arne Dedert/picture alliance via Getty Images
- ByteDance's publishing company, 8th Note Press, plans to release physical books.
- BookTok's success has driven book sales, influencing TikTok's publishing strategy.
- Physical releases will focus on popular genres on TikTok like romance and young adult fiction.
Viral marketing on TikTok has helped book publishers and authors reach new heights. Now, TikTok wants in on that action.
After the monumental success of "BookTok" — a community of bibliophiles on the platform that discusses books and shares what they are reading — TikTok's parent company, ByteDance, started publishing digital books through its publishing company, 8th Note Press, last year.
8th Note Press is now teaming up with Zando, an independent publishing company, to release a line of print novels to sell in retail stores starting in 2025.
"This partnership marks an exciting new chapter for 8th Note Press," Jacob Bronstein, head of editorial and marketing, told Business Insider in a statement. "By joining forces with Zando, we'll be able to expand our reach and bring our amazing books to even more people in all the formats in which they love to read."
Molly Stern, Zando's founder and CEO, told BI that 8th Note's list of book titles "encompasses some of the freshest and fastest growing genres out there."
BookTok's viral videos have rocketed both new and experienced authors to fame over the last three years.
Sales of Colleen Hoover's 2016 romance novel "It Ends with Us," for instance, jumped 650% in 2021, selling 1.9 million copies after going viral on TikTok five years after it was originally published.
Hoover's novel inspired a series of videos that garnered millions of views. In the videos, frustrated or desperate readers commented on the character's behavior in the book, often with emotional songs in the background, like Taylor Swift's "All Too Well."
Now TikTok looks to reverse the process: Watch trends online and print print books in response.
Zando told BI that 8th Note Press is focused on bringing a wide range of author voices to "millennial and Gen Z readers looking for stories that reflect their diverse experiences."
The company plans to release 10 to 15 books a year, with titles that focus on genres popular with younger TikTok users, like romance and young adult fiction, according to The New York Times.
Debut novelist Sanibel — who writes under a mononym — sold her book "To Have and Have More" to 8th Note Press last year. She told the Times that she initially worried her book would be "an e-book only situation, but was reassured when she learned about 8th Note's partnership with Zando.
"8th Note is a brand-new press, so I knew I was going to be a guinea pig to some degree," she told the outlet. "There's this very ambitious, building the airplane while it's flying kind of feel."