I remember scrolling TikTok in 2021, watching another book I'd never heard of climb to the top of a "must-read" list, and thinking — I should be there. I know I should be there.

And then I closed the app. Because I genuinely could not get off the couch.

That moment has lived in my head for a long time. And the question underneath it — the one I've never quite said out loud on this podcast — is this: Was the moment I missed the only moment? Or is there still a place for the writer who shows up late?

That's what we're doing today.

Hey Scribe, Sarah here and thanks for spending this time with me today.

Let me take you back to 2020. COVID hit, bookstores closed, and readers — suddenly stuck at home with nothing but time — found their way to a corner of TikTok called BookTok.

And what happened next was something the publishing industry hadn't seen since Oprah's Book Club.

A hashtag became a discovery engine. Readers weren't reviewing books — they were reacting to them. Crying on camera. Screaming. Holding up their highlighted copies. And the algorithm, which rewards emotion above almost everything else, absolutely ate it up.

The biggest beneficiaries? Indie romance authors. Because romance is built for exactly that kind of reaction. The slow burn. The betrayal. The moment the love interest finally says the thing. Romance readers don't just read — they feel, loudly, and TikTok gave them somewhere to put it.

The wave started in 2020. But here's what people get wrong — they talk about BookTok in the past tense, like it was a pandemic anomaly that faded when the world reopened. It didn't.

According to Circana data reported by Publishers Weekly, BookTok was directly attributable to approximately 59 million print books sold in the U.S. in 2024. Not 2021. Last year. That's roughly 760 million dollars tied to a single discovery channel. And in Europe, 2025 data shows another 50 million books — 800 million euros — flowing from TikTok recommendations. Right now. Currently happening.

Put it all together and BookTok drives somewhere between 7 and 8 percent of all U.S. print book sales. For one platform. That's not a nostalgia story. That's a tectonic shift that is still moving under our feet.

And the authors who rode that wave? They weren't unicorns. Let me give you a few names.

Elsie Silver built an empire on small-town cowboy romance — Chestnut Springs — which is almost exactly the lane I write in with Songbird. Hannah Grace published a sports romance debut called Icebreaker and watched it become a global phenomenon, almost entirely through TikTok. Ana Huang went from indie author to traditional publishing powerhouse on the back of BookTok momentum. These are not people who had bigger platforms, bigger budgets, or bigger books than you. They had TikTok, and they showed up.

There was a window. And a lot of women walked through it.

Here's the honest part. The part I don't love saying.

While that wave was building, my marriage was ending. My mental health was the worst it had ever been. I could write — barely — but I could not put my face on camera. I could not be on. And TikTok, in those years, rewarded being on. Loud, fast, reactive, performative. I didn't have any of that to give.

So I watched. From the shore.

And if that's where you were too — if you sat out a wave because you were surviving something — I want to say this clearly: that is not a failure of strategy. That is a person being a person.

So. I'm actually on TikTok now. And I want to tell you what it actually feels like, because it is not what I expected.

It's slow. Let me just say that first, because I think anyone who's showing up in 2026 and expecting the 2021 experience is going to feel like they failed when they haven't. The algorithm has changed. The wild-west era — where any debut could blow up overnight — has cooled. Growth is slower, steadier, and more relational now.

But here's what I didn't expect: the comments section. I have never been anywhere online that felt more genuinely like people wanted you to succeed. Readers cheering. Writers cheering. Complete strangers leaving voice notes in the comments because your video made them feel something. It's different from Instagram, where the silence can feel like judgment. On TikTok, imperfection lands. A shaky video with a real thought in it consistently outperforms a polished one with nothing to say.

It's the only platform I've been on where a stranger has become emotionally invested in your book before they've even bought it.

Here's the reframe I've had to do in my own head, and maybe you need it too.

The wave I missed wasn't the wave. It was a wave. Platforms have seasons. The authors who lasted through BookTok's evolution — the ones who are still there, still growing — weren't the ones who timed their entry perfectly. They were the ones who kept showing up after the algorithm changed. After their growth slowed. After the novelty wore off.

I'm not late. I'm early to whatever the next chapter of this platform is. And so are you, if you're still standing on the shore.

Three things I'd tell 2021 me, now that I know:

You don't have to be loud. You have to be honest. Your readers don't need you at your best. They need you as you are. And the cost of not showing up — the books unread, the readers who never find you — is higher than the cost of showing up imperfectly, every single time.

IS IT TOO LATE?

Let me answer the question directly, because I know some of you came here specifically for this.

No. It is not too late. But I want to give you something more useful than reassurance — I want to give you an honest map of where readers actually are right now, in 2026, so you can make a real decision about your time.

TikTok and BookTok — still the single biggest book-discovery engine for fiction, especially romance. And I want to push back on something here, because I hear it constantly: "TikTok is for teenagers." It's not. Not anymore. The platform's fastest-growing demographic is women aged 25 to 50 — which is, not coincidentally, exactly who reads romance. If your reader is a woman in her thirties or forties with a Kindle and a book hangover, she is almost certainly on TikTok. Your assumption that you're too old to be there, or that your readers are too old to be there? That assumption is costing you. What's changed from the early days is what works: consistency, niche, and collaborating with other creators matter far more than chasing virality. Best for writers who can commit to three or four short videos a week for at least six months and who can talk about their writing process and other people's books — not just their own. Worst for writers who need fast ROI, or who genuinely hate being on camera. Don't torture yourself.

Instagram and Bookstagram — still strong for community, weaker for discovery than it once was. Reach is harder to come by; saves and shares matter more than likes. The useful thing: if you're already making TikToks, you can repost them as Reels for free. It's not a second platform — it's a second window.

Threads — this one surprised me. After X became unusable for a lot of writers, the literary community quietly moved to Threads, and the bookish corner there is dense and genuinely active. It's text-first, conversational, low-production. It suits introverts. It suits quiet achievers. It suits people who have something to say but don't want to be on camera to say it. If that sounds like you, it might be worth ten minutes of your day.

Now here's the part I want you to really sit with, because I think it's the most important strategic point in this entire episode.

You do not own any of it.

Not your TikTok following. Not your Instagram audience. Not your Threads community. Every single follower you have on every single social platform is sitting in a house that belongs to someone else. TikTok can be banned — and we watched that almost happen. Instagram can change its algorithm overnight and cut your reach by 70 percent — and we've watched that happen, repeatedly. A platform can decide tomorrow that it no longer wants to show your content to the people who asked to see it, and there is nothing you can do, because you are a tenant. You are not the landlord.

Your email list is the only real estate you actually own.

Those subscribers chose to let you into their inbox. No algorithm stands between you and them. No platform can take them away. If every social media app disappeared tomorrow — and honestly, stranger things have happened — your email list is what you'd have left. It's the difference between building on rented land and building on ground you hold the deed to.

So here's how I want you to think about social media from this point forward. It is not the destination. It is the doorbell. The entire point of every TikTok, every Reel, every Threads post is to get your reader off that platform and onto your newsletter. That's it. That's the job. You are not trying to build a TikTok following. You are trying to convert a TikTok viewer into an email subscriber — because that is the relationship you actually get to keep.

Social media is where readers find you. Your email list is where they stay with you. Don't confuse the front door for the living room — and don't spend all your time decorating a house you don't own.

And my actual answer to "is it too late?" — the question itself is the trap. "Too late" assumes there was one moment. There wasn't. There was a moment for Hannah Grace. There was a moment for Colleen Hoover. There will be a moment for someone listening to this episode. And the only thing you can do to be ready for it is to already be showing up when it arrives.

If you've been waiting until you feel ready — until your hair is right, until the book is out, until the kids are older, until you're not grieving something — I waited five years, and I'm here to tell you: the version of you that's surviving something is the version your readers actually want to meet. When you're ready to meet them.

So here's what I want you to do this week. Just one thing.

Pick one platform. Not three. The one where you can imagine yourself still posting in eighteen months when no one is watching yet. When the numbers are small and the growth is slow and there are no guarantees. Pick the one you could sustain on a hard day.

And then every time someone connects with what you share — every comment, every save, every reply — your one job is to give them a reason to come find you somewhere you actually own. Link in bio. Sign-up in the caption. A freebie. Whatever works for you. Just get them off the platform and into your world.

Show up on the days you don't feel like it. More than the days you do. Because that's the whole job, really. That's always been the job.

Thanks for being here. I'll see you next week on The Write Podcast.