What began as readers filming shelf tours and posting quick reviews has grown into an industry-shaping force. Bookstores now dedicate physical sections to BookTok favourites, a dedicated BookTok chart launched earlier this year, and genres like romantasy — the hybrid of romance and fantasy — are posting record sales that dwarf their pre-pandemic baseline.
The Numbers Behind The BookTok Boom
The Publishers Association confirmed the UK’s publishing income hit £7.4bn in 2025, citing the nation’s growing appetite for fiction, children’s books and audiobooks. Within that overall growth, the genre breakdown tells a sharper story about where BookTok is directing attention.
NielsenIQ BookData reported that romance and saga book sales declined 15% in 2025, with 10.1 million units sold — a dip that follows several years of exceptional growth. Even so, romance sales remained twice as high as their 2019 level. Sci-fi and fantasy, the category that encompasses the romantasy subgenre, fared far better: sales rose 42% year-on-year to 8.8 million units, a 183% increase on 2019.
The divergence suggests BookTok’s influence is not lifting all genres equally. It is channelling readers toward specific subgenres — hockey romance, cowboy romance, romantasy series — that perform well in short-form video, where a dramatic plot twist or a slow-burn pairing can be clipped and shared in seconds.
From Hashtag To High Street
The BookTok phenomenon has moved well beyond the screen. Dedicated BookTok sections now appear in many bookshops, and a BookTok chart launched earlier this year combines data from traditional rankings like the Sunday Times bestseller list with UK sales figures and analysis of the #BookTok hashtag. The inaugural chart was dominated by romance and romantasy titles.
For Holly Irwin, the online community became a business plan. The 20-year-old relocated from Hamilton, New Zealand to Cirencester in the Cotswolds and opened Hollyhocks, a bookshop specialising in romance novels, in August. She started her Instagram account in 2021 to share reviews and connect with fellow romance fans, and her following grew to more than 149,000 across Instagram and TikTok.
Holly said she “never really got into reading” as a child and assumed books were not for her. That changed during the Covid-19 pandemic when she read the Twilight saga. “I loved the movies, so I started reading. I’d never really tried to read romance before that, so I thought books weren’t for me,” she said. “I read Twilight and I absolutely devoured those books and I haven’t stopped since — it’s been books, books, books.”
The leap from content creator to shopkeeper came during a 2024 trip to Oxford with her mother Maria. “We got back home to New Zealand and just thought life’s too short… you’ve got to follow your dreams and you’ve got to give it a go,” Holly said. “It was kind of all or nothing… it’s been wild, but it’s been so fulfilling and so worth it to see this dream of mine come true.”
Young Readers Trade Streaming For Pages
The trend is also reshaping how younger readers spend their downtime. Mia, a 14-year-old reader from Bristol, said her screen time was “definitely lower” since she started reading more, citing the romantasy series Powerless by Lauren Roberts as the book that hooked her.
“While reading it, I was on the edge of my seat wondering what was going to happen next,” Mia said. “I’ve had such a cut from screen time like with Netflix and Disney+. I don’t really go on those anymore because I think, well, what would I prefer to do? Watch a TV series or find out what happens next in my book?”
She described reading as a way to keep her brain engaged. “I’m in a different world. There’s loads of different genres, so if you’re not into one thing — like if you’re not into mystery — don’t give reading up because you might prefer romance or something.”
At Hollyhocks, Holly has noticed the same pull toward escapism driving her sales. Specific titles and subgenres — hockey romance and cowboy romance in particular — sell out faster than others. “It’s definitely because of BookTok… everyone has just been on such a cowboy romance kick,” she said. “I think people like to escape to a whole different world, so that’s definitely a contributing factor. It blows me away, the power of social media.”
What Happens Next
The 2025 sales figures suggest BookTok’s commercial impact is maturing rather than fading. With sci-fi and fantasy up 183% on 2019 and romance still double its pre-pandemic level despite a year-on-year dip, publishers are likely to keep commissioning for the subgenres that travel well on short-form video. Expect more dedicated BookTok charts, more bookstore sections curated around hashtags, and more creators following Holly Irwin’s path from review account to bricks-and-mortar retailer.
The risk for the industry is over-reliance on a handful of viral subgenres. The romance decline in 2025, after years of exceptional growth, hints at how quickly a BookTok trend can cool. Publishers and booksellers that treat social media as a discovery tool rather than a permanent demand engine will be best placed if the next reading trend arrives from somewhere other than TikTok.
— Lucas Berg, culture desk, AXO News