Leah Koch
Appearances
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
They started asking for things that I wasn't expecting. So, series that I had read and enjoyed but weren't, like, top of mind. The first person, I was like, totally. By the fifth person, I was like, how do you know about this series? Yeah. And she was like, oh my God, it's all anyone's reading on TikTok.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Very notably to me, it was actually translating to sales. And young people were coming into the shop and they were coming with shopping lists of things that they had seen on TikTok. And so we would start clocking, like whatever they were asking for, we're like, okay, we need to order more copies because next week, like there's going to be a thing that everybody wants.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Great question. Let's quickly define what a romance novel is. You need two things to be a romance novel. You need a central love story and a happy ending. And the happy ending, sometimes people try to get around for some reason, but you can't. They have to be together and happy at the end. They do not have to be heterosexually married with a baby, but like one of them can't get hit by a bus.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Because that's a tragedy, right? Yeah, or a train a la Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina is not a romance novel. She dies. Got it, got it. Anyway, I read to have fun. Same. And romance novels are fun.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
So if you ask somebody for cowboy werewolves, number one, they're going to take your request very seriously. And number two, they're going to say, okay, here are the two options that we have. But if you're interested in that, you might also be interested in cowboy mermaids or werewolf doctors.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
They started asking for things that I wasn't expecting. So, series that I had read and enjoyed but weren't, like, top of mind. The first person, I was like, totally. By the fifth person, I was like, how do you know about this series? And she was like, oh my God, it's all anyone's reading on TikTok.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Very notably to me, it was actually translating to sales. And young people were coming into the shop and they were coming with shopping lists of things that they had seen on TikTok. And so we would start clocking, like whatever they were asking for, we're like, okay, we need to order more copies because next week, like there's going to be a thing that everybody wants.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Great question. Let's quickly define what a romance novel is. You need two things to be a romance novel. You need a central love story and a happy ending. And the happy ending, sometimes people try to get around for some reason, but you can't. They have to be together and happy at the end. They do not have to be heterosexually married with a baby, but like one of them can't get hit by a bus.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
Because that's a tragedy, right? Yeah, or a train a la Anna Karenina. Anna Karenina is not a romance novel. She dies. Got it, got it. Anyway, I read to have fun. Same. And romance novels are fun.
The Journal.
Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.
So if you ask somebody for cowboy werewolves, number one, they're going to take your request very seriously. And number two, they're going to say, OK, here are the two options that we have. But if you're interested in that, you might also be interested in cowboy mermaids or werewolf doctors.