TikTok is known for a variety of different things. Good videos, bad videos, weird videos, misinformation, etc. But perhaps the oddest thing that TikTok has ever produced? A book publishing company, specifically tailored for romance authors, just came out this very year. The multinational Chinese company ByteDance, the owner of TikTok, was the publisher.
The publishing company has already made quite a few changes to the way that books are found online, having huge reach to consumers because of TikTok. It is clear the company has the potential to sell a vast quantity of books, having capability to reach enormous audiences, considering that many of TikTok’s users are interested in books(there were 91 billion views on posts with the
#BookTok
hashtag) even if ByteDance has made future publishing plans for the company relatively vague.
“This could be the next big thing,” Mariah Dietz, a self-published romance author, said of ByteDance’s publishing arm.
The company has already propelled many formerly small authors into best-seller writers. One such example is Colleen Hoover, who has already sold over 24 million copies of her book and has gotten 4.2 billion views to posts with
#ColleenHoover
.
Already, over 760 million dollars have been made in sales by over one hundred ByteDance published authors in 2022, which gives a rise of over 60 percent since 2021. In late April, ByteDance filed a trademark for the publisher 8th Note Press, its description saying that it was a company that would provide a “range of book publishing products and services.”
Despite all this good news however, there was also how they deal with authors, sometimes just paying a few thousand dollars for the right to a book. Tricia O’Malley, a romance author who had already published around 40 novels, got an offer from ByteDance to purchase two of her books. The deal included a social media marketing campaign, royalties and an advance of $3,500 per book — less than the titles earned every month, O’Malley said.
For now, however, ByteDance seems to be focused on the genres most popular on the platform: Romance, fantasy, and mystery.
The publishing company has already made quite a few changes to the way that books are found online, having huge reach to consumers because of TikTok. It is clear the company has the potential to sell a vast quantity of books, having capability to reach enormous audiences, considering that many of TikTok’s users are interested in books(there were 91 billion views on posts with the
#BookTok
hashtag) even if ByteDance has made future publishing plans for the company relatively vague.
“This could be the next big thing,” Mariah Dietz, a self-published romance author, said of ByteDance’s publishing arm.
The company has already propelled many formerly small authors into best-seller writers. One such example is Colleen Hoover, who has already sold over 24 million copies of her book and has gotten 4.2 billion views to posts with
#ColleenHoover
.
Already, over 760 million dollars have been made in sales by over one hundred ByteDance published authors in 2022, which gives a rise of over 60 percent since 2021. In late April, ByteDance filed a trademark for the publisher 8th Note Press, its description saying that it was a company that would provide a “range of book publishing products and services.”
Despite all this good news however, there was also how they deal with authors, sometimes just paying a few thousand dollars for the right to a book. Tricia O’Malley, a romance author who had already published around 40 novels, got an offer from ByteDance to purchase two of her books. The deal included a social media marketing campaign, royalties and an advance of $3,500 per book — less than the titles earned every month, O’Malley said.
For now, however, ByteDance seems to be focused on the genres most popular on the platform: Romance, fantasy, and mystery.