Meet the ‘BookTok’ crowd supercharging Gen Z’s reading habits

Half past 10 on a Thursday morning, on the third floor of Waterstones’ flagship Piccadilly store, and a crowd has already started to form. There are 20 minutes until the event begins and eager fans have already taken their seats in the front row. “We’re from Birmingham and we’ve travelled down for this,” says a seriously excited Humaira, 25, who has bagged a spot front and centre. “We’re OG [original] fans.” She’s sitting with school friend Adeeva and between them is a stack of around 15 books, lugged down (with care, of course) on the train. They’re waiting for the first talk and signing of the day featuring their idol, writer of Young Adult phenomenon Stars And Smoke, Marie Lu, alongside fellow romance authors Beth Reekles and Jenny Ireland.

Downstairs, fans have been queuing for an hour to get their hands on free copies of one of the hottest autumn releases, Molly X Chang’s To Gaze Upon Wicked Gods, and the “It bag” du jour is a canvas tote with the logo of an iconic bookshop or novel. This is BookFest, a two-day event with panels, book giveaways, craft workshops and even careers advice aimed at a burgeoning generation of avid Gen Z readers. It’s basically BookTok IRL (“in real life” for the offliners among us).

Communal lockdown project BookTok, a devout corner of TikTok formed by voracious readers, has blossomed in the three years since its inception, and while there’s truly a place for everyone, its genres of choice are romance, mysteries, thrillers and fantasies. Fans debate the merits of tropes including “enemies to lovers” and “grumpy/sunshine”(where a “grumpy” character falls for a “sunshine” character), celebrate books that have left them sobbing, and worship at the altars of writers such as Lu, Reekles, Taylor Jenkins Reid and Colleen Hoover.

One of the first people I meet is Sam, who at just 24 is a TikTok veteran with 40,000 followers (she goes by @samfallingbooks) and the host of this morning’s panel. “BookTok is a community of normal people who like to read and we shout about the books we love,” she tells me, matter-of-factly. “The more you get involved in the community, the more people you meet. Talking about books is just so wholesome.”

This isn’t just a lovely online community though – these Gen Z readers have caused what Waterstones’ Children’s Buyer Hazel Maxwell calls “a sales explosion”. “We’re selling far more volume and taking more pre-orders across a far greater number of titles than ever before,” she says. “BookTok influencers are committed to the value of bookshops and the physical book so we are finding our YA sections in shops busier than ever.”

In 2022, UK readers aged 14-25 became the most prominent consumers of fiction since 2016, according to Nielsen BookData, and if the novels are good, they don’t care when they were released (the best-selling YA fiction book of 2023 so far, Laura Nowlin’s If He Had Been With Me, came out in 2013, while Taylor Jenkins Reid’s novels are modern classics, as far as BookTok is concerned). Even if you’re not on TikTok, you’ve probably bought a book made popular by the platform, as the community’s favourite titles are on best-sellers’ walls and many bookshops now feature “Popular on BookTok” tables in prominent positions.

Genres that were perhaps previously overlooked – or the subject of snobbery – are racking up seriously impressive sales figures and in 2022, readers aged 20-24 became the largest buying group of romance novels. When asked why this is, teenagers are perhaps more honest than adults would be. “Romance, I want that in my life,” asserts one with a shrug. “So why not read it?”

It’s at events like these where Gen Z readers are taking their DMs offline, and meeting up for the first time. “I’m such close friends with people I’ve met through BookTok,” says Sam, who rushes off to meet said pals as soon as we stop chatting. “I think most of us spoke for a couple of months and then went to a book event to meet.”

These switched-on readers aren’t just looking at TikTok either. Goodreads – which I use just to track how badly I’m doing at my annual Reading Challenge – is a vital discovery tool. Michelle, Alexia and Chiara, all 16 and far cooler than I will ever be, offer a crash course in how to use it properly, urging me to read the monthly emails on what’s trending and explaining: “It tells you when your friends have finished books too, and you can see their to-read piles.”

They’re also using Instagram more efficiently than me; Alexia has a separate Insta just for books and they all follow accounts dedicated to their favourite novels. “I follow a bunch of authors on there and that’s how I find out about upcoming books or events,” she explains. “I’m starting to post more on it but when I first had it, it was mainly for following authors.”

Their enthusiasm reminds me of how I felt as a teenager, when the books I read changed my life by pushing me towards an English Literature degree. Until university, my main source of recommendations was my favourite teacher (The Handmaid’s Tale was quite the read for 15-year-old me, but I’m grateful nonetheless). Here, surrounded by the bookish buzz, it’s impossible not to wonder if I would’ve stuck with my dream of working in publishing if I’d found the community that they have.

The trio of school pals are discerning readers as well as avid ones. “It was better than I thought it would be,” Alexia says of BookTok fave The Seven Husbands Of Evelyn Hugo. “It was for school, but I just finished The Odyssey,” adds Michelle, with no idea how impressive this is. “I really like classics. Song of Achilles and Circe are both really good.”

There are downsides to using social media for books’ content though. “I always spoil murder-mysteries for myself,” admits Alexia. “Pinterest always picks up on what I’m reading, and then I’ll see memes from it and posts revealing what happens and then I’m like ‘ah, now I know’. Or a lot of the time, I watch a show or film before finding out it’s a book, and then I’ll read it.”

With dedication this high, publishing houses have cottoned on to the fact that this room isn’t just full of consumers – their future colleagues might be here too. A Penguin careers stand features a Family Fortunes-style wheel filled with jobs and after giving it a spin, attendees can speak to the editors, designers and PRs on those career paths.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, a number of attendees are hoping to be the bestselling authors of tomorrow. “I write fantasy,” says 15-year-old Eva, who is here with two school friends for a panel featuring three of the genre’s most prominent YA authors, Bea Fitzgerald, Kika Hatzopoulou and Natasha Bowen. “The real dream [career] would be to write. I’m really excited to see what the authors have to say about coming up with stories. [Writing] is all about reimagining.”

Her friend Karla – who has her eyes on a career in journalism but could go into PR right now – chips in with a wholehearted: “Her book is really good!!” She’s only read three chapters of it, Eva points out, but Karla is insistent and I believe her.

The free elements of BookFest occupy Waterstones’ second floor while the ticketed talks are taking place in a cordoned-off area on the third. But by 3pm, both levels are fields of flower crowns: the teens have been making them at workshops all day (as someone who failed miserably doing the same at a recent hen do, I commend their efforts). Fitzgerald – whose retelling of Hades and Persephone inspired the day’s main crafting activity – is sporting lipstick the same colour as her bestselling novel’s Barbie-pink cover and signing seemingly countless copies at a meet-and-greet.

The queue for the final panel of the day – titled It’s Giving Murder Vibes: Stories That Slay – stretches the length of the flagship store. The main draw for the headline event is Karen McManus, who is introduced as “the mother of young adult thrillers” to huge cheers. When Karen teases her next book – “I thought ‘What if it’s The Parent Trap, but both parents are con artists?’” – audible gasps fly out.

But it’s in the moments when the authors give unfiltered writing advice that the audience really lean in and take notes. Beth Reekles was 15 when she started publishing The Kissing Booth chapter by chapter on writing platform Wattpad, before the book was released by Penguin Random House in 2013; Netflix’s film adaptation was watched 18 million times in its first week. She’s a strong advocate for getting started with fan fiction, while thriller supremo Karen maps her plots out with screenwriters’ beat sheets. It’s inspiring to the point where I, a person who hasn’t written fiction since primary school, feel like maybe I could pen a novel or sidestep into publishing, at least. Maybe my teenage dream isn’t dead just yet – and there’s plenty here that are just beginning.