Readers Can’t Get Enough of BookTok. Publishers Are Cashing In.

单集文稿 ...

• 00:00

  Hey, it's Jess. We're off on Memorial Day, but with summer reading season coming up,

• 00:04

  we wanted to bring back an episode we made a few months ago.

• 00:08

  It's on BookTok, the corner of TikTok that's all about books,

• 00:11

  and how it's transforming the publishing world.

• 00:14

  Here it is.

• 00:22

  For Leah Koch, the romance novel is life.

• 00:26

  She's loved romance since she was a teenager.

• 00:29

  What is it that draws you so much to this type of writing?

• 00:33

  Great question.

• 00:34

  Let's quickly define what a romance novel is.

• 00:37

  You need two things to be a romance novel.

• 00:39

  You need a central love story and a happy ending.

• 00:42

  And the happy ending, sometimes people try to get around for some reason, but you can't.

• 00:48

  They have to be together and happy at the end.

• 00:50

  They do not have to be heterosexually married with a baby,

• 00:53

  but like one of them can't get hit by a bus.

• 00:57

  Because that's a tragedy, right?

• 00:59

  Yeah, or a train a la Anna Karenina.

• 01:01

  Anna Karenina is not a romance novel.

• 01:03

  She dies.

• 全部文稿