TikTok boosts Charles Dickens sales at London's oldest bookshop - UK BOOKTOK TREND (4449721)
Welcome to Hatchards, London's oldest bookshop.
For the past 10 years, manager Francis Cleverdon has opened the doors at 09:30 a.m., restocked the shelves and kept an eye on sales figures every day.
But this summer, something changed.
"One always sells quite a lot of Dickens, but all of a sudden, the Tale of Two Cities went completely wild and we sold 15 copies in a week and all that sort of thing. And you try and discover why it is that everybody's buying it and they're saying, 'Oh, it's because it's in the book. And he does it,' and all that, which is lovely," says Cleverdon.
Published in 1859, "A Tale of Two Cities" is Charles Dickens most renown historical novel. Set in Paris and London it tells the story of a family against the backdrop of the French Revolution.
Hatchards usually sells a single copy of this book a week.
So Cleverdon turned to TikTok to find answers, and was surprised to find dozens of videos on social media where people film themselves buying "A Tale of Two Cities."
"The original, what are they called - Tiks, Toks, messages - came out during July. And ever since then it's been on the go and it feels like if you're coming to London, this is one of the things you want to do, which is great," he says.
One of the original TikToks featuring Hatchards and the Dickens book racked up more than 800,000 views, and appears to have set a trend, mostly among young American tourists.
"You don't usually get a lot of 16-year-olds desperate to come here, and now we do. So it's marvellous," says Cleverdon, who's more used to his older, loyal clientele.
But there's another explanation: the Dickens book, bought at Hatchards, is a central part of another book, "The Infernal Devices" trilogy by Cassandra Clare.
And it's fans of Clare's best-seller who are visiting Hatchards to reenact the characters' story.
Vritti Chopra is a college student and TikTokker living in North Carolina.
When she visited London in July, she pressed the record button as soon as she arrived at Hatchards.
"Being able to be in that place where some of my favourite fictional characters have been was - it was interesting to see how would have the story - how Will would have bought the book here like this. This is the same exact place. So it was exciting to be there," she says.
"It was also really beautiful. The bookshop, I remember the stairs are just so pretty and all the books and it's such a warm and comfy feeling and it was really fun being there."
Another TikToker is Dania Mahdawi, who lives in California and studied in London for the first half of the year.
She hopped on the trend to introduce the bookshop to her followers.
"When I did show up there, I was like, 'I'm just going to like record the TikTok.' I wasn't there for the TikTok, but I kind of was because I just wanted to record it and show off the bookstore. I honestly did not expect it to blow up as it did, which is like absolutely insane," she says.
"The Infernal Devices" trilogy is a teenage fiction centring on a group of "shadow hunters," who are half-human, half-angel, set in Victorian-era London.
Clare, who isn't on TikTok, wasn't aware of her fans' videos.
She says she picked Hatchards as a bookshop because her grandfather, who lived in London, took her there numerous times.
"You climb these lovely winding steps and you have this real sense of being surrounded by the history of books. And one of the things I wanted to do when writing historical fiction, especially for young people, is to situate them in a place where I can say: 'Will went out and bought this book at Hatchards, this is something you could do too. It doesn't matter that it happened 150 years ago. You can still go to Hatchards. You can still buy a book there. History is with us. It's present," she says.
Clare's books are not that recent: they were published between 2010 and 2013.
So why is it going viral now?
Kristen McLean, a book sales analyst and executive director of Circana Books and Entertainement, attributes this phenomenon to the power of #BookTok, the book community on TikTok, and its younger audience.
According to Circana, 80% of #BookTok readers in the US are under 34.
One in 10 is under 18.
This viewership is an emerging market, says McLean.
Influencers reviewing or featuring older books are directly boosting their sales.
...
Circana tracks sales of more than 100 #BookTok authors identified as such by American book retailer Barnes & Noble.
In the US, #BookTok author sales have nearly quadrupled between 2020 and 2022, going up from 13 million to 47 million books sold.
But #BookTok sales growth is starting to show signs of slowing.
July 2023 was the "first month where #BookTok author sales fell below prior-year levels" in the US, according to Circana.
AP video shot by: Tristan Werkmeister