Fan content within the YA/NA BookTok community and its influence on the publishing industry: the case of the hunger games and ACOTAR

Abstract

The literary fan community has been around for quite some time, but with the emergence of social media, it has been revolutionised. Specifically, from TikTok has emerged BookTok, the sub-community in which only books are discussed, mainly those of the YA/NA genre, which generally corresponds to the works targeted to the 12-25 age group. In particular, it will focus on the cases of The Hunger Games and ACOTAR. As fans have evolved, so has the industry, with a need to embrace these new readers who are guided by the recommendations of an algorithm. This project aims to analyse the fan content published by the participants of the BookTok community and observe how their dynamics work. Simultaneously, it explores the publishing industry and how BookTok practices can influence companies' decisions. This is intended to be accomplished through a qualitative approach, combining two methodologies. Firstly, it will involve a textual analysis, which will examine the fan content retrieved from BookTok through a series of semiotic categories. Secondly, a digital (auto)ethnography, which will entail a participation observation and semi-structured interviews, analysed using a thematic analysis.