If you’re an aspiring author or avid reader, you’ve likely heard of BookTok, the wildly popular TikTok community for authors and book lovers alike. You may also know that some authors across several genres are widely read within this community. Many of these authors use TikTok to promote their work, build a community, and engage with their fans—all of which are great ways to market and generate sales for their books/brands.
In this article, we’re outlining 10 BookTok authors to follow for marketing inspiration. These authors effectively use TikTok for marketing purposes and have built a dedicated community centered around their work.
Here are some BookTok authors to follow for marketing inspiration:
10 Booktok Authors to Follow to Learn TikTok Book Marketing
1. Tessa Bailey
If you’re an avid romance reader, you might’ve heard of, or even read, Tessa Bailey’s It Happened One Summer—which is currently being turned into a movie.
The eclectic writer has about 250,000 followers on TikTok who love her feel-good plots and easy-to-read writing style. On TikTok, Tessa gives her fans glimpses into her life, most of them hilarious. She shares short clips about the joys and frustrations of the writing process and publishing industry, her understanding of pop culture, and relatable breakdowns of movies/shows she’s binge-watching.
Tessa mixes this light-hearted content with real-life updates of her books, events, upcoming stories, and movie adaptations.
2. Ali Hazelwood
In 2021, Ali Hazelwood’s The Love Hypothesis took romance readers, especially those in the BookTok community, on a wild journey with the classic enemies-to-lovers trope and a refreshing representation of women in STEM—with one of the main characters, Olive, being a third-year Ph.D. candidate. In fact, many of Ali’s works revolve around women in STEM, including her latest novel, Love On The Brain.
Ali often uses her TikTok account to promote her work and share announcements, but she also uses it to commend other writers and support her fan base.
She also shares hilarious videos about the writing process as well as adorable clips of her cat.
3. Jenny Han
Know what the series To All The Boys I’ve Loved Before and The Summer I Turned Pretty have in common? Jenny Han authored both stories.
In addition to being the original writer of these popular movie series and shows, Jenny Han is also the executive producer of her adaptations. On her TikTok account, Jenny shares a lot of behind-the-scenes videos, where she introduces her fans to the people playing the characters in her books.
Not only do the videos keep existing readers and viewers glued to the pages of Jenny’s books and their movie/show adaptations, but they also generate even more awareness for her work.
4. Abby Jimenez
In addition to being the owner of Nadia Cakes, Abby Jimenez is the author of some of the hottest romance novels, including Yours Truly, Part of Your World, and Life’s Too Short (for which won the Minnesota Book Award in 2022).
On her TikTok account, Abby shares many heartwarming videos of her beloved dogs with nearly 600,000 followers (at the time of writing). She also answers fan questions occasionally, uses clever trends to promote her work, and shares wholesome videos of her home life, including her 16-year-old daughter, Maya, and her love for the accordion.
The appeal of Abby’s TikTok channel is its authenticity. People who are pet owners, romance lovers, parents to teenagers, writers, and cake enthusiasts can find something for them in Abby’s online repertoire.
5. Casey McQuiston
Another romance writer whose work has been turned into a movie is Casey McQuiston, the author of Red, White, and Royal Blue, an exciting queer enemies-to-lovers story that follows the prim-and-proper Prince Henry Fox of the British Royal Family and Alexander Claremont-Diaz, the first son of the United States.
Casey doesn’t have many videos up on TikTok but the few she’s posted center around Red, White, and Royal Blue’s cast as well as her pretty, color-coded bookshelves/workstation and book updates. Yet she has over 100,000 followers, which speaks to how much people appreciate letting them into your writing processes and adventures.
6. Fiona Lucas
Fiona Lucas is the award-winning writer of “heartbreaking and uplifting romances” such as The Last Goodbye and Never Forget You. On Fiona’s TikTok page, she shares updates about her work, her nominations and awards, and some writing challenges she embarks on with over 30,000 followers.
While this, in itself, is a great marketing strategy, Fiona takes things up a notch by sharing writing and publishing tips for aspiring writers and self-publishers. For example, she shares practical tips on the length of a book/chapter, how to write a cliffhanger, how to end a novel, and how to edit your manuscript, among other topics.
She also shares stories from her writing journey, including why she uses a pen name, how she wrote her first book, and some common problems she faces as an author. If you’re a budding author (especially in the romance genre), Fiona’s TikTok has many gold nuggets to help you on your journey.
7. John Green
Moving away from romance, we have popular author, John Green, who’s known for writing young adult fiction with complex characters dealing with difficult real-life problems. His most popular works are the famous tearjerker, The Fault In Our Stars (which was adapted into a movie in 2014), Paper Towns, Looking for Alaska, and his latest work, The Anthropocene Reviewed.
On TikTok, John Green has nearly 3 million followers with whom he shares videos about several topics, including his book and their movie adaptations, his activism work (now centered on tuberculosis), his family life, and his brother, Hank’s recent journey through chemotherapy, among other things.
John has been on social media for over a decade, and yet people still flock to his channels, especially his TikTok profile, because of how relatable and spontaneous his content is. Whether you’re a fan of his work, an activist against the hoarding of tuberculosis treatment, a parent to inquisitive kids, or someone just looking for a laugh, there’s something on John’s TikTok for you.
8. Rebecca F. Kuang
Rebecca F. Kuang, popularly known as R.F. Kuang, is a fantasy and dark academia novelist who’s released powerhouse novels like The Poppy War, Babel, and Yellowface. Rebecca uses her TikTok page mostly to share news about her work. She shares behind-the-scenes videos with her publisher and sneak peek videos about her most recent novel, Yellowface. Rebecca also shares videos of her cat and her journey to becoming a popular BookTok author.
While her TikTok page is sparse, the curated videos on there can serve as a great inspiration to writers who want to learn how to document their journeys and promote their work without giving too much away.
9. Chloe Gong
Chloe Gong, a New Zealand author, jumped onto the BookTok scene with her novel, These Violent Delights, inspired by the tale of Romeo and Juliet, and set in a violent 1920’s Shanghai. With These Violent Delights, Chloe proved herself to be an innovative author whose works people will always want to read.
Despite having over 200,000 followers on TikTok, Chloe posts short, but hilarious, clips making fun of her imposter syndrome, her novel plot and characters, and her experiences at book-related events, and her life as a professional author.
Chloe’s TikTok videos are a masterclass in using humor to build a community, generate awareness about your work, and entertain your fan base all at the same time.
10. Alex Aster
With over 1 million followers on TikTok, Alex Aster, the author of popular fantasy novels Lightlark and Nightbane is excellent at using the platform to share videos of her journey as a professional author. She shares entertaining clips where she offers tidbits of her books’ plots, fictional scenarios, eventful trips to bookstores, and interesting conversations with her parents about her books.
Alex also shares content from book signings, live talk shows, and ComicCon.
Alex’s content isn’t super-curated or professionally edited, but it’s that rawness, authenticity, and humor that endears her to her fan base. That’s the secret ingredient in her marketing mix.
Learn TikTok Marketing from Booktok Authors
A study of some of your favorite BookTok authors (including the ones outlined above) can teach you, an upcoming author, how to use TikTok videos to market your books to your target audience. With TikTok, you can get access to hundreds of thousands of people, generate awareness for your work, build a community of people who love your books, and build your writing career.
