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The Conversation
The Conversation
Xiang Ren, Lecturer in Media and Communication, University of Sydney

In China, social media apps are changing how people buy and read books – selling more than physical bookshops do

Douyin BookTok China WeChat Australia Tencent TikTok United States
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While the Australian book market was down 3% last year, genre fiction – popular on BookTok – was among the rare categories that grew.

Since 2020, BookTok has been increasingly influential in how people (especially young people) read. Books popular on BookTok were among the top ten bestselling Australian titles of 2024. Colleen Hoover’s 2016 novel It Ends With Us (also a 2024 film) was fourth, with Sarah J. Maas’ A Court of Thorns and Roses (2015) and Rebecca Yarros’ Iron Flame (2023) the next highest-selling novels, in sixth and seventh place.

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