As soon as President Donald Trump took office, he issued an executive order giving TikTok a 75-day extension to sell or otherwise be banned in the United States. All I can say is that dramatic uncertainty surrounds the future of the app; I point you to tech industry analyst Benedict Evans: “Policy isn’t supposed to be chaotic and unpredictable, and neither should it turn on a president talking about overturning laws by fiat, but then, these may be characteristics of Trump’s administration in more fields than this. Setting the politics aside, though, the underlying issues have always been pretty clear. Close to 150 million Americans use an app controlled by a Chinese company, and any Chinese company is in principle subject to the arbitrary and unlimited authority of the Chinese Communist Party: You do what you’re told, with no independent courts, warrants, laws or due process to get in the way, or you disappear. And that doesn’t really change if the management moves to Singapore.”
The book publishing industry stands to be significantly affected (although I still believe a ban will never be permanent): according to Circana BookScan, BookTok accounts for one in every 12 print books sold last year. Here are the latest takes on the situation:
- Publishers, authors, and influencers discuss whether anything can adequately replace BookTok.
- More publisher and industry reaction via Publishers Weekly; many industry leaders argue that nature abhors a vacuum, and if TikTok were banned, something would effectively take its place.
Jane Friedman has spent her entire career working in the publishing industry, with a focus on business reporting and author education. Established in 2015, her newsletter The Bottom Line provides nuanced market intelligence to thousands of authors and industry professionals; in 2023, she was named Publishing Commentator of the Year by Digital Book World.
Jane’s expertise regularly features in major media outlets such as The New York Times, The Atlantic, NPR, The Today Show, Wired, The Guardian, Fox News, and BBC. Her book, The Business of Being a Writer, Second Edition (The University of Chicago Press), is used as a classroom text by many writing and publishing degree programs. She reaches thousands through speaking engagements and workshops at diverse venues worldwide, including NYU’s Advanced Publishing Institute, Frankfurt Book Fair, and numerous MFA programs.
