After her first year of college, rather than taking the summer off and decompressing from the school year, Chloe Gong decided to write a book. That novel, These Violent Delights, would go on to become a New York Times bestseller.

These Violent Delights debuted on Nov. 17, 2020, in the midst of a global pandemic and Gong's senior year at the University of Pennsylvania. Despite not being able to tour the country to promote her book, her novel still debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in the weeks after its release because Gong took a different route: TikTok.

Gong created her TikTok leading up to the release of her book, promoting preorders and seeking early readers. While the approach then may have seemed untraditional, she was, in reality, ahead of the curve in modern book marketing. Her TikTok account now has 221.7K followers, and she has published seven books, with two more coming in the second half of 2026.

What Gong tapped into was BookTok, a corner of TikTok where readers could connect and enthusiastically share their latest reads. As of 2026, the #BookTok hashtag on the app has surpassed 78.7 million posts. The platform's influence is hard to overstate. In 2021, the World Economic Forum reported that readers purchased a record-breaking 821 million books, a surge widely attributed to BookTok. Its impact has reshaped bookselling, with both physical and online stores routinely featuring dedicated BookTok sections. The publishing industry has had to adapt, and for authors, that shift increasingly means active participation in online communities.

Today, authors are expected to take on an additional role: creator. Authors, who used to be known by name alone and maybe an author photo on the back cover, have taken a front-facing role. Author Victoria Aveyard (Red Queen) has amassed 501.5K followers on TikTok, and Jodi Picoult (My Sister's Keeper) has 478.5K followers.

On BookTok, alongside readers posting monthly reading wrap-ups, you'll find bestselling and indie authors alike, pitching their books in less than 60 seconds. Authors are using the platform to engage with fans, and also just have fun, participating in trends and embracing lifestyle content.

Gong, whom I spoke with at BookCon 2026 in New York City, said, "Social media feels as though it has become an essential tool for authors who want to level the playing field, especially if they don’t have the backing of a lead title." In publishing, books generally fall into three categories: lead titles, midlist, and quiet books. As the name suggests, lead titles — often written by established or highly anticipated authors — receive the bulk of a publisher's time, resources, and marketing budget. Midlist and quiet titles, by contrast, receive progressively less support, placing more of the burden of promotion on the authors themselves.

Even with hundreds of thousands of followers, however, viral success does not guarantee book sales. Gong cautions that relying on social media remains a gamble. "It has worked for many people, but at the end of the day, it is still like gambling," she said. "There's no denying how powerful [social media] is, but when I'm giving advice to new authors, I always want to tell them, 'Look, you can roll the dice, but you can't beat yourself up for not winning.' The odds are just stacked against you. The algorithm is very specific about what types of books that it likes."

Emma Noyes is one author who took that gamble. In a Substack post titled "Once, I had a book deal for half a million dollars. Now, I'm back to self-publishing," she recounts her path to a traditional publishing deal. After years of trying to break in, Noyes joined TikTok in 2021 as BookTok gained momentum. By 2022, she had built a following of more than 150K, which helped her secure her dream agent. In July 2022, she signed a multi-book deal with Berkley Publishing, followed by another with Wednesday Books in May 2023. Combined, those advances totaled more than half a million dollars, she wrote.

But after the book deal, Noyes slowly learned a crucial lesson: "Followers do not equal book sales."

"People came to my page for the roommate who built my bookshelf, my Swedish boyfriend (now husband), my Vampire Diaries parodies and videos about the cast, and my older brother Henry, who the internet decided was hot (gross). All of those things were fun to film, but they had nothing to do with my writing," Noyes writes, "Which meant that, when I posted about my books, no one cared. And no one purchased." Now, she's taking a different route: self-publishing her next novel, Prince of the Sun.

For other authors, writing is built into their platform from the start. Katie Wu, who joined TikTok under the username @katiewuwrites, created her account the day after finishing her first novel. "I believed in myself, so I started my account in case it could help my author journey," Wu says when we spoke at BookCon.

Wu's debut novel, Madder Lake, is set to be published by Harper Voyager in 2027. As for whether her TikTok following helped her land the deal, she says it's possible. During the BookCon panel "Readers vs. Writers' Spaces," Wu shared that a "whole slew of factors" go into a publisher's decision to acquire a book — and she's unsure how much her platform ultimately mattered.

But with authors taking the gamble on content creation, there's another issue to contend with: navigating the boundaries between reader and writer spaces online. While Gong was early to TikTok, BookTok was originally, and still is, driven by readers sharing and reviewing books. While there are plenty of loyal fans of authors and book series, when a negative review rolls in, authors are now face-to-face with their critics.

"Just don't tag writers in negative reviews, right? That's just common courtesy," Wu said on her BookCon panel. Author Brooke Fast, who joined Wu on the same panel, also had insights. Like Wu, Fast was first a creator, primarily on Bookstagram (the equivalent of BookTok, but on Instagram), before HarperCollins published her debut novel, To Cage a Wild Bird.

"If I'm tagged in positive content, I'll typically interact with it when I'm able, but I would never interact with negative content," said Fast. "I know sometimes it gets confusing. I've heard authors say that if someone comments negatively on my post, that's my space and I'm now entitled to fight back. But I just think nothing good comes from fighting."

“If I'm tagged in positive content, I'll usually interact with it when I can, but I never engage with negative content," Fast said. "I know that can be confusing. I've heard authors say that if someone comments negatively on my post, that's my space and I’m entitled to fight back. But I don’t think anything good comes from fighting."

With authors increasingly present on BookTok, the challenge isn't just proximity to audiences; content creation can become a full-time job, often at the expense of writing. Wu says social media can be useful in the early stages, helping her narrow down and refine ideas. By staying attuned to what readers are discussing, she can "use that lens to help [her] pick and refine ideas." But once drafting begins, she makes a point to tune it out.

Gong echoed that approach. "My job is writing. My job isn't being an influencer. I’ll post if I have something to share with my readers — behind-the-scenes insights or news about a new book — but I always remind myself that my goal is connection, not growth. Otherwise, my books get sidelined."

So while the author-as-content-creator line begins to blur in the era of self-promotion, especially when publishing resources aren't stacked in an author's favor, it remains true that it's a tool for connection and promotion, but it's not a second career.