to live for the hope of it all

the american publishing industry has always struggled to market books in the age of the internet. very few books actually get proper marketing plans and typically the ones that do are books written by white authors or at the very least have white characters. in the past a lot of marketing was age category/genre specific--it was geared toward librarians and teachers for kidlit, book clubs for litfic, ebook deals and KU for romance etc. but with the rise of social media things started to converge.

but the problem with social media marketing is that it's very hit or miss. it worked well for marginalized authors about a decade ago when people cared about diverse books, but since the pandemic, book bans, attacks on education, rise in right wing propaganda etc. there's been a sharp decline in that. additionally, an author having a large following for their social media presence (i.e. funny tweets or viral reels) doesn't necessarily translate to book sales bc those followers might be interested only in that online content. and on top of that, what works for one book/author can't necessarily be replicated for another. authenticity matters which is why fan led viral posts work a LOT better (see bigolas dickolas and this is how you lose the time war) than if it comes directly from the publisher or author.

booktok kind of changed the game bc that's a platform where going viral or building a large following (see alex aster) DOES translate very directly to sales. a book's best chance of hitting the nyt list is during release week bc preorders + first week sales all count toward it. in the last few years, books have hit the nyt list weeks, months, even years after they've come out solely bc of tiktok, which means a book can randomly go from having a few dozen/hundred sales a week to thousands virtually overnight.

another example: in the past, being self-published didn't necessarily offer you a path to traditional publishing bc they were largely parallel industries. but now if an indie book gets enough attention on tiktok, publishers will acquire the rights to the books and then publish sequels or new series with that author. the rise in romantasy can be traced back to tiktok too (fourth wing, crave, the atlas six, trial of the sun queen etc.) basically if booktok likes something, publishers will try to buy 20 more books just like that bc it's basically guaranteed sales.

and unlike other platforms, tiktok virality CAN be replicated with great results and at very low costs to publishers. all they have to do is send the book to a bunch of reviewers/influencers and hope that one of them will like it and make a video that will sell the book for them.

marketing plans for a majority of authors have gone from actual strategies to.... let's hope it goes viral on tiktok. publishing is letting booktok basically shape the tastes of the whole industry bc it's cheap, convenient, and far easier than spending time and money seeking out unique audiences for each book that might not pay off in terms of sales numbers. and writing books that appeal to booktok readers significantly increases an author's chances of being able to make a living off of writing. what that means is that now both writers and publishers are disincentivized from taking creative risks.

going back to the the original topic, fanfic has long been published, but usually it's cleaned up enough so it bears no real resemblance to the original source (shadowhunters, 50 shades). if it was rpf, there was absolutely ZERO acknowledgement from either the author or the publisher about it. but nowadays, having recognizable ships means it's even more likely to go viral on booktok, especially when those ships are already popular on there.

whether it's a fictional ship (dramione, reylo, stucky) or rpf (including y/n books with athletes, kpop idols, pop stars) the lack of fandom etiquette means fans are fully searching for and promoting that content on these public platforms. and the side effect of mainstream visibility is that brands (including publishers) are getting involved to try and profit off it. pop culture jeopardy called heated rivalry hockey rpf and named the players. i'm willing to bet that 2028 will see the release of a bunch of sports romances that are thinly veiled haalingham fic. and neither publishing nor the brands have fully accepted that crossing these lines won't end well (see the aftermath of alex wennberg/seattle kraken embracing booktok and how hard they had to pivot out of it).