How TikTok Became a Best-Seller Machine

It was published in 2012 with an initial print run of 20,000 copies. This month, its publisher, Ecco, announced it had sold two million copies across all formats.

Miriam Parker, Ecco’s associate publisher, said this type of sales record for a book like “The Song of Achilles” is more than remarkable.

“It never happens,” she said. “This is a book about the Iliad!”

Ms. Miller, who has another book, “Circe,” that has also been popular on TikTok, said she is now taken more seriously in the literary world because of her work’s higher profile. The sales also came as a relief during an extremely challenging time.

When the pandemic began, her speaking and touring opportunities dried up and she thought she might need to go back to teaching to earn a living. Since February 2020, she has been struggling with long Covid and was concerned about her ability to work, she said. Having “Song of Achilles” catch fire on TikTok allowed her to take care of herself and her family, and to keep working on her next novel.

“It really has changed my life,” she said. “It has given me the time to write, to continue to be a writer.”

Some of TikTok’s success in selling books can be traced to bookstores, which started paying attention to which books were gaining traction on the platform, Ms. McLean said. Barnes Noble in particular caught on early; many of its stores put out tables with a selection of trending titles. Those displays spread the word about BookTok to new readers, and the cycle continued.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/01/books/tiktok-books-booktok.html