Did the US RUIN BookTok??? (A realistic outlook)

I went on YouTube to talk about the US purchase of the TikTok app and its divestment from its parent company, ByteDance. If you want to watch the video, it’s linked below. Otherwise, keep scrolling for the blog version!

If you’ve been anywhere near author TikTok lately, you’ve probably seen the panic.

“The U.S. bought TikTok.”
“BookTok is dead.”
“This is the end. No one’s going to make money anymore.”

I know, because my inbox exploded.

Emails. Facebook DMs. Instagram messages. All some version of the same fear:

Is TikTok still worth using to sell books, or should I just wait this out?

Let me be very clear up front: waiting it out is the worst possible move.

What actually happened is far less dramatic than the internet wants it to be. The U.S. portion of TikTok’s algorithm and user data changed hands. Not all of TikTok. Not the entire platform. A portion of it. ByteDance still owns TikTok Shop, the ads platform, and maintains significant control over how monetization works.

Is it uncomfortable? Sure. Is it scary when your income depends on a platform? Absolutely. But none of that automatically equals “BookTok is dead.”

I want to give you some context, because context is the thing that disappears the second panic sets in.

If you don’t know me, I’m Kate Hall. I write books—yes, very smutty ones—and I use social media to sell them. I’ve also helped over 3,000 authors learn how to do the same. TikTok has been my highest ROI platform for years, not just in money, but in time. If you do it correctly, it pays you back far more than you put in.

Right now, I spend about five hours a month posting my books across six TikTok accounts. If I doubled that time, I’d make significantly more money. I don’t, because my focus is elsewhere—but the system itself works, consistently.

When the ownership change happened, everyone panicked because views dropped across the board. Mine did too. So did thousands of other creators’.

That lasted about a day.

That wasn’t TikTok “dying.” That was servers, data, and infrastructure switching over. Within 24 hours, views stabilized. Not just for me, but for authors and creators across multiple niches. I know this because I don’t rely on a single account or my personal brand. I run six faceless shadow accounts that post scenes from my books. No face. No name. No author clout. Just content.

Those accounts dipped during the switchover, then normalized. That’s not collapse. That’s a technical transition.

One of the biggest misconceptions I’m seeing right now is authors assuming this change affects everyone equally. It doesn’t. If you’re a journalist, a political commentator, or someone posting news-heavy content, yes—this matters more. If you’re a fiction author selling romance, fantasy, sci-fi, memoir, or any kind of story-driven book, this change barely touches you.

Your readers are not paying attention to corporate ownership structures. They are not migrating en masse to a brand-new, unproven app because the internet is yelling about TikTok’s demise. They are opening the same app they opened yesterday and scrolling the same way they always have.

The people who are worried are creators. The general user base—the people who actually buy books—largely does not care.

That’s an important distinction.

We’ve seen this cycle before. Platforms “die” every few years, according to the internet. And yet, somehow, they keep functioning. Twitter became X. People swore it was over. Millions left. Millions stayed. People still make money there. MySpace was a true platform death, but that kind of total collapse is rare. TikTok is nowhere near that.

From a book marketing standpoint, TikTok is still functional. You can still post. You can still reach readers. TikTok Shop still works. Slideshow content still works. Face accounts still work.

Which brings me to what actually matters: strategy.

If you want the highest return for the least amount of time, nothing has changed. Shadow accounts posting slideshow content still outperform almost everything else. That’s not a theory. That’s years of data.

These accounts don’t use your real name. They don’t sync contacts. They don’t rely on your personal brand. They simply post emotionally compelling scenes from your books in a swipeable format that lets readers move at their own pace.

And no, readers do not care that you wrote 500 words today. They do not care about your Canva graphics, your cover reveal, or your Kindle Unlimited badge. They care about the story. They care about how it makes them feel.

When content looks like an ad, people scroll. When it doesn’t, they stay. Staying is what triggers reach. Reach is what triggers sales.

The same rule applies to paid promotion. Throwing money at bad content does not save it. In fact, it teaches the algorithm that your content only performs when you pay. If you’re going to promote anything, promote posts that are already doing well. Content that’s already proven it knows how to find the right audience.

That’s how you get cheaper ads, higher ROI, and posts that don’t just get a few extra views—but get a second life.

Here’s the part I want you to really sit with: TikTok didn’t suddenly stop working. What changed is the emotional environment around it. Fear makes people freeze. Freezing kills momentum. Momentum is where money comes from.

If you’re selling books, the fundamentals haven’t changed. Readers still want stories. TikTok still shows them stories. The authors who keep posting through the noise are the ones who will still be making money when everyone else decides it’s “safe” again.

And by then, they’ll already be behind.

So no—BookTok isn’t dead. So let’s get to work and make some money.