How do booksellers keep up with the latest trends in a fast-changing world? It used to be simple: just read the newspaper, watch TV, or listen to the radio. But now, with the rise of social media, blogs and podcasts, booksellers need to be more alert and adaptable than ever.
The first major change came in 1999, when the internet became a source of information and inspiration for book lovers. Booksellers had to expand their horizons and read people’s blogs from different countries and cultures. Then, in 2005, Facebook took over the world and made information even more accessible and viral. Publishers and media outlets started to lose control of the narrative, and booksellers had to listen closely to their customers, not only in their own region but also internationally.
As a bookseller from the Antipodes I learned that trends typically started in the U.K. and U.S. about one month before they reached my region. This gave me an advantage: I could watch these two markets and order stock ahead of time, sometimes even airfreighting from overseas because the local publishers were not ready.
Mid-2018 I took on a new challenge and moved to the U.A.E. to manage the awesome Books Kinokuniya Dubai – with a small suitcase of shirts and ties, and a sense of smugness that I knew everything and could copy the last 20 years. For the first couple of years, that was somewhat true – and then it wasn’t.
Early in 2020 I visited the new Kinokuniya Abu Dhabi branch. As I was walking around, a young Emirati girl approached me and asked if I was the manager. Although timid at first, she was certainly confident about what she wanted to see in her happy place. She wanted a BookTok section. I had no idea what BookTok was – I did use TikTok, but I had never seen any book-related videos on it. I raced back to the buying team in Dubai and asked if they had heard of this trend. None had – but we then spent days watching clips and ordering books. A section was created in each store and the result was the rebirth of fiction and YA for us.
If you are still unaware, BookTok is a phenomenon where people use TikTok to share their love of books. They make short videos where they review, recommend or react to books they have read or want to read. They also use hashtags, music, filters and stickers to make their videos more fun and appealing.
A few months later, we turned up the heat in the U.A.E. with a large window display and an incentive, in partnership with our key suppliers. We invited customers to make a BookTok about their favourite book to go into a draw for a book pack. The response was massive: hundreds of entries, thousands of views, and dozens of new bestsellers. And while the suppliers were happy to support us, most had never actually heard of BookTok. Almost a year later, we started seeing other international bookshops and publishers starting to promote BookTok, while a trip to the U.K. only revealed modest BookTok-related displays. Could a bookshop in the Middle East have been the first to embrace this phenomenon?
While peak growth for BookTok is a distant memory, I have certainly seen reluctant readers who caught the BookTok bug move onto some much more interesting reads. Camus, Slyvia Plath, Dostoyevsky, and Sartre are all trending.
BookTok is just one example of how the book industry is becoming more diverse and dynamic. Over the last few years, I’ve seen some major trends emerge from non-English speaking regions: the rise of Indian publishing, Japanese translated literature, African authors, and of course the Sharjah Booksellers Conference. Suddenly it seems publishing in English is not the sole property of the U.K. and the U.S. The tail is now wagging the dog – let’s hope we are listened to.
Steve Jones is the Kinokuniya Dubai Mall Store Manager and U.A.E. Merchandise and Marketing Manager
