I just wanted to show publishing that there was a market for this book," she said. "Would you read a book about this?"she asked in a TikTok video about "Lightlark." So in March 2021, she decided to take the idea straight to her audience. "The publishers said they liked it, but the market was super saturated." It took Aster almost a year to find an agent who would help her fine-tune the story and pitch the project to publishers. Maas, another fantasy bestseller.Īster was so set on "Lightlark" that in early 2020 her literary agent dropped her, thinking she was being too stubborn about the novel. Aster describes it as a cross between the "Hunger Games" and "A Court of Thorns and Roses" by Sarah J. She was particularly interested in selling a project she'd been working on for years: a novel called "Lightlark" about an island that emerges once every 100 years to host a competition between the island's six rulers. "It wasn't enough to live off of or really compensate for the years of work." "My first deal had a very small advance, less than $10,000 for each book," she said. Her ultimate goal was to score a book deal that would allow her to pay the bills, she said. Since it appeared during the first wave of the pandemic, the hashtag has amassed 47 billion views - more than other common hashtags like #unboxing or #recipe - and is considered to be a driver of the highest US book sales since 2004.Īster knew this was the moment to focus on promoting her work on TikTok. Then, in late 2020, she noticed that TikTok users were becoming increasingly interested in books and the hashtag #BookTok began to gain momentum. The marketing budget was limited, she said, so she decided to go directly to her Gen-Z audience on TikTok in hopes of drawing more attention to and anticipation for her debut YA novel, 2020's "Emblem Island: Curse of the Night Witch," and its sequel, "Emblem Island: Curse of the Forgotten City."Īt first, Aster focused on growing an audience by conducting viral dances and challenges, and making comedy and lifestyle videos. She started her account after signing her first book deal with a small publishing house. And that following recently helped her get a book deal worth nearly half a million dollars. Since she joined the platform in 2018, the 26-year-old young-adult author has built a following of about 730,000 followers. That helped her land a six-figure deal and sent her book to the top of the best-seller list.įor writer Alex Aster, the so-called BookTok phenomenon, which has sent book sales surging, has turned out to be more than a fun TikTok trend.After becoming popular on "BookTok," she used her audience to gain support for a plot idea.
Alex Aster is a 26-year-old YA author with 730,000 TikTok followers.Account icon An icon in the shape of a person's head and shoulders.
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