Community Beyond the Page | BookTok & Book Clubs with Zoë

Reading is not an isolated activity. While the consumption of words is between the reader and the page, communities have formed around written work since ink first dripped onto a page. TikTok has exploded onto the scene during the COVID-19 pandemic; and many booklovers have taken to making bite-sized videos about their favorite books, the current trends, and all things book-related. I sat down with Zoë, a “BookToker,” and we chatted about TikTok, book clubs, and creating a bookish community in New York City.

LEX: Between your TikTok and book clubs, do you think they’ve persuaded people to look at a certain genre or an author—I mean, obviously yes for people in the book clubs, but what about outside of that? But overall, what kind of influence do you think you've had on people's book buying experiences? 

ZOË: I probably haven't had any impact because I don't tell people what to read on my TikTok account. I think that was one of the things that I really didn't want to segue into.

However, I’ve had two people reach out and send me books. They didn’t ask anything of it when they sent the book, but I do think that I owed them something to talk about it. Luckily for me, both books were things that I felt people would really enjoy, and I felt that they were different than what I was seeing online. The videos I made about those books were more about the reading experience than what the book was actually about. I was basically showing people that it's available but not telling them to read it. 

I do think that BookTok has the Colleen Hoover effect: everything is very much a funnel. There are so many books that are published each year, and only a fraction of them is spoken about on BookTok. It's all from people who have a very specific thing that they're looking for when they read because they've been impacted by past BookTok books that then kind of perpetuates the cycle. When I started these book clubs, I decided to just do all debut authors, so it's only their first novel.

For instance, this upcoming month in November, a majority of the books that we're reading have been published within the past week and a half, so they’re relatively new. People have the opportunity to support them. Next month I’m starting a Donate a Book Fund because debut books are not as easily accessible through libraries and some people don't want to buy the book. We do have people who have mentioned, “Hey, I would love to donate to a fund to help somebody get the book if they can't pay for it.” Mostly I just think it's really important to support those debut authors that you're not seeing a lot. 

We've been lucky enough that two of the authors have spoken at The Strand and P&T Knitwear. I think debut authors are so much more accessible because they want to connect with their readers. For instance, one of the book clubs is reading A Very Typical Family by Sierra Godfrey. When she saw that we were reading her book, she told us that she would love to Zoom with us at some point and talk to us about her book. 

At the end of the day, I want to create a more unique reading experience. If anything, my influence was, I did not like what I was seeing on BookTok, and I wanted to pivot in a different direction. 

To read the full interview, visit Lex’s blog here.