TikTok in general, and BookTok in particular, may have been absent from the news in recent weeks, but now it’s back as Sam Missingham launches a new platform to connect authors and the BookTok community.
ALLi News Editor, Dan Holloway
Sam Missingham has been championing indie authors for as long as I’ve been on the scene. And not just championing but providing practical support. Now she has launched a platform that aims to provide very specific support to us, drawing on her social media and PR background. You can check it out at MeetTheBooktokers.
MeetTheBooktokers: A New Platform to Connect Authors and BookTok Influencers
MeetTheBooktokers has a simple premise. It’s a matching site. Think NetGalley but with a really focused audience. Authors sign up (for free) and get to promote their books to those in the BookTok community who would be interested in their work. And Booktokers don’t just get books. There is a series of discounts they can get on cool stuff that companies can sign up to offer as perks.
This is a great opportunity to match two communities. It takes place, of course, under a genuine shadow, in the U.S. at least: the ban on TikTok that is scheduled to come into place shortly.
It was inevitable that TikTok would appeal as soon as Joe Biden signed the act that would outlaw the wildly popular platform in the U.S. if its parent company ByteDance didn't sell the U.S. operation and change the way its recommendation algorithm worked. TechCrunch reported that as TikTok faces this ban, ByteDance’s Lemon8 platform is already gaining popularity in the U.S.
TikTok Ban Appeal and the Impact on BookTok
This week the appeal has come. As expected, much of the detail of the argument is about whether or not ByteDance really is a Chinese company (it’s based financially in the Cayman Islands, but then so are many companies that would otherwise have a whacking tax bill). But the rhetoric is a clearly defined face-off. On the one hand, TikTok claims a ban would be a colossal breach of freedom of speech.
On the other hand, the U.S. government claims the app is a threat to U.S. democracy because of the way it spreads disinformation, and to the security and privacy of U.S. citizens because their data could end up in Chinese government hands. As quoted by the BBC, the government’s defense team put it, “It is not expression by Americans in America—it is expression by Chinese engineers in China.”
It’s worth remembering that the outcome will affect some 170 million U.S. users of the app, and BookTok is a large part of that base. I will keep reporting, but expect an outcome soon as there are only a few months before the original deadline for divestment is up.
Having just launched MeetTheBooktokers, it was very interesting to get Sam’s take on the situation, which was typically heartfelt: “It has been so amazing to watch BookTok reinvigorate the book world and turn so many people into new readers. It would be terrible for the U.S. BookTokers, who are some of the largest and most engaged influencers, to be banned.”
