By: Kerry Ding

The parent company of TikTok, ByteDance, is a book publishing company. The publishing company seems to be biased towards their own books, which leads many readers and authors to wonder whether ByteDance may be only promoting their writers.

The publishing company that was created by ByteDance is called the 8th Note Press. It was created so people from all over the world can read, write, buy, and discuss books with other people. ByteDance filed for a Trademark in late April.

ByteDance, has already greatly changed the way books are currently being sold. Instead of finding books on book lists, people can easily find book reviews on social media, especially TikTok. ByteDance has caught on to this new trend of reading and writing books. On TikTok, books that are written by Tik Tok Creators are trending with nearly 155 BILLION views on #Booktok. This is why the new company has a lot of opportunities and potential. Books are clearly now a new and important trend, where Byte Dance can possibly earn a lot of money. According to the senior publishing director at Harlequin, “To say it’s hugely important is an understatement at this point.”

Even though the company hasn’t launched yet, the company’s presence in the market already worries many people, this massive new company may run over the traditional book suggestion and writing websites.

Sources:

https://www.tiktok.com/tag/booktok

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/07/01/books/tiktok-book-publishing-bytedance.html