In China, publishers have discovered a rich vein thanks to bookfluencers. Reviews on social networks such as Douyin (the Chinese TikTok) or RedNote have become the sales engine for many books in recent years. However, the volume of books and the intense competition between these influencers has led to the credibility of the model beginning to be questioned.
what has happened. They tell it in world of chinese. A book content creator posted a 25-minute video exposing another professional colleague who has more than half a million followers. In the video, he shows a paper almost 5 meters long with a list of 700 books that this bookfluencer had supposedly recommended on his social networks. There wouldn’t be any problem if it weren’t for the fact that they were the readings of a single year. It comes out almost two books a day.
Authenticity not found. There is even more and, when reviewing the reviews, he found something curious. They were full of repeated and very exaggerated phrases. For example, this influencer felt “transformed” by 17 different books and “healed” by 33 more. We don’t know if he used AI to summarize the books and do the reviews, but clearly they weren’t real reviews. The online community of readers had been criticizing the lack of authenticity for some time and this video was the last straw.
Read for the algorithm. Reading fans criticize the model that has been created with online recommendations. For several years now, the publishing industry has made these influencers a key resource to promote their launches, but with the passage of time, the volume of readings and the need to keep up to date with all the trendsis transforming reading from a leisurely and private activity to something manufactured for the “by weight” algorithm.
The business works. Video reviews are giving publishers very good results, as in the case of the novel ‘The Last Quarter of the Moon’, which went from 600,000 copies to more than 6 million after a famous influencer recommended it. Large publishers allocate a specific budget and pay commissions of between 15 and 30% of the sales generated through their channels.
The dependence on this promotional model is such that, according to editor Bai Bai, “In many cases, if no influencer is willing to take charge of a book or promote it, the book is practically doomed to failure at the moment of its publication.”
A precarious job. Although publishers turn to these creators and give them good commissions, it does not mean that it is exactly a grateful job. There is enormous competition between creators, who have to constantly be up to date with trends in order to satisfy the algorithm and have their content go viral. Still, income is very unstable, pushing creators to post more reviews and exaggerate the impact the books have had on them. Anqian Reads, one of these bookfluencers, says “The ironic thing is that since I’ve been a book influencer, I have less time to read.”
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