TikTok loves book tropes like 'enemies to lovers' and 'right person wrong time,' and authors are feeling pressure to use them to try and go viral

• The TikTok hashtag #BookTok is turning books into bestsellers.
• Users of the platform often describe novel plots by "tropes," or recurring narrative devices.

TikTok is changing the publishing industry.

On the platform, the book-related hashtag #BookTok has amassed over 140 billion views. Thousands of creators discuss their favorite reads daily, and authors can find huge success on it.

"It changed my entire life, it changed my career," said author Alex Aster, who got a six-figure book deal after she made a video that went viral on the platform describing the plot of a novel she wrote.

And BookTok has changed the way creators and authors talk about books on social media.

A common way to quickly discuss book plots on TikTok is through tropes, or specific themes that recur in many stories. Tropes are commonly associated with genres like romance, but can extend to many others.

Some of the most widespread tropes are "enemies to lovers," where two characters initially don't like each other and end up being lovers; "friends to lovers," where two friends become romantically involved; or "right person wrong time."

The related hashtags for these tropes rake in millions, even billions of views: #enemiestolovers has seven billion, #friendstolovers has 940 million, while #rightpersonwrongtime has 220 million.

The focus on tropes has to do with the short nature of videos on TikTok, creators told Insider. With one- to three-minute videos, creators have mere seconds to capture the attention of a viewer and condense the plot of a book. Tropes make the task easier.

"You'll get a recommendation within 15 seconds, rather than with a YouTube video where you're waiting for a few minutes, or on Instagram where it's just a picture and you don't really know from the picture what the book is about," said Emily Russell, who built an audience of 65,000 recommending books on TikTok.

BookTok has helped lift book sales. 2021 was the publishing industry's best year since 2004, according to data from US print-book-sales tracker Circana BookScan (formerly NPD BookScan), which began tracking sales that year. Sales have since dipped slightly, but are still up compared to 2019.

Romance fiction is the genre that has benefitted the most, with three consecutive years of growth and over 36 million print copies sold in 2022.

Publishers are also thinking about tropes. While these narrative devices are not new, they are gaining newfound importance thanks to TikTok.

"Tropes are more important than ever," said Christina Demosthenous, publisher of Renegade Books, an imprint of Hachette-owned Dialogue. "They are signifiers for readers, and readers are ride-or-die for their favorite tropes. There's something in the comfort and familiarity of them."

The success of tropes puts pressure on authors to try them

For authors, seeing these types of plots find success on the platform can be a double-edged sword.

Those who set out to write using tropes may find life-changing success — like the ever-present sensation Colleen Hoover or Emily Henry, author of several romance bestsellers.

But other writers may find themselves discouraged, or feel the pressure to incorporate certain tropes in their writing to increase their chances of going viral.

"There's this constant battle to try and stay one step ahead of the trend so that you can have your book feel different enough that people want to buy it, but familiar in terms of the tropes and the sounds," said Michael Evans, a thriller author and founder of a subscription platform for writers.

Chloe Gong, who wrote the bestselling historical mystery series "These Violent Delights" and promoted it through TikTok, said she was lucky to find a dedicated audience of readers even though her novels were not necessarily "BookTok books."

"Otherwise, you tend to talk about the romance more, and the drama subplot more, and I think it's because that's what holds attention," Gong said. "As far as supporting other books that don't fit that mold, that is quite difficult and I wish people did support those books more."

Author Anne Bailey, for example, is primarily a writer of historical fiction.

She decided to try writing a romance novel incorporating popular tropes like "enemies to lovers." When compared to her first historical novel, her first romance novel found success much quicker, selling five times more copies in 30 days, she said.

"I was very aware of what people were searching for in terms of keywords, what was popular, and I wrote a book that was still in my own voice, in my own plot, but that was able to fit in that category," she said.

Some creators worry the focus on tropes on TikTok may be limiting authors' visions.

"Books are so much more than the tropes they use," Russell said. "It is limiting for authors, especially because they think they nowadays have to base a lot of their books on the tropes, which is not true. As long as it's a good plot, people are going to read it."