BookTok: How TikTok turned Victoria Eden into a published romance author in just a few years

The publishing industry – which was worth more than $120 billion globally in 2022 – has been dominated by whiteness for as long as it has existed, often to the exclusion of Black authors like Eden Victoria.

More than 70 per cent of people working in the Australian publishing industry identify as white, according to a 2023 survey from Publishing Research Quarterly.

The publishing industry workforce is disproportionately white in the US as well, where the Lee & Low Diversity Baseline Survey 3.0 found 72 per cent identified as white.

READ MORE: Samantha Shannon was 20 when she signed her first six-figure book deal

In UK, that figure was closer to 85 per cent in 2024, according to a report from The Publishers Association.

The overrepresentation of white people in the publishing industry is reflected in books they choose to publish, 89 per cent of which were written by white authors in 2018 according to a report by the New York Times.

But there’s a new tool helping pave the way for authors of colour trying to get published in the 2020s: BookTok.

For a daily dose of 9Honey, subscribe to our newsletter here

London-based Eden started her TikTok account dedicated to all things “bookish” in 2022, after two years of lockdowns and reading to get through “unprecedented times”.

“The idea of publishing a book wasn’t even on my radar when I started. I just wanted to connect with people who loved reading the same books I did,” she tells 9honey.

The videos she shared were simple – selfie-style clips of her thoughts on the latest romance releases and books she rated five stars – but the response was huge.

Within a year, Eden had amassed a following of more than 300,000 people and she was named Creator of the Year at the inaugural TikTok Book Awards UK in September 2023.

Not long after, she received an email from an editor from Simon & Schuster.

Eden saw the opportunity for what it was and pitched concepts for two young adult novels, the first of which was a romance featuring a Black female main character titled Close Protection.

“I was completely hooked,” editorial director Yasmin Morrissey told BookBrunch.

She bought world all language rights to both books, and just like that Eden was plunged into the publishing world, a space that was utterly foreign to her despite her lifelong love of books.

”Going into the publishing industry without an agent faced me with a whole new set of challenges,” she admits.

“Because I was completely new to the world of publishing and writing, I felt like I was playing catch up – and to be honest I still do.”

READ MORE: How Ana Huang’s ‘spicy’ romance book got 800 million people talking

In March, Close Protection hit shelves and became an instant bestseller.

Eden can now add ‘published author’ to her resume, a title she never dreamed she’d claim.

“I didn’t realise that sharing my ‘bookish’ opinions online could lead to something as amazing as this,” she says.

Eden acknowledges her BookTok success played a significant role in landing a deal with one of the ’Big Five’ of traditional publishing (Penguin Random House, HarperCollins, Hachette Book Group, Simon & Schuster, and Macmillan).

It’s unlikely she would have had access to the same opportunities if she wasn’t already an internet personality with an audience in the hundreds of thousands.

WATCH: Pakistan-born Australian writer Saman Shad on her latest release

At the same time, she’s glad to see how platforms like BookTok can help prospective authors from more diverse backgrounds get their foot in the door in the publishing industry, a space where so many have been historically underrepresented.

Though there are still conversations to be had about whiteness dominating online ‘bookish’ spaces, there seems to be greater opportunities for non-white authors to share their stories and find readership and community there than in traditional publishing.

19 banned and challenged books everyone should read

”BookTok is such a diverse space where people who may not have originally had the opportunity to have their voice heard, or their books read, can now reach so many people and gain more opportunities,” Eden says.

Fresh off her book tour for Close Protection, she’s keeping plans for her second novel close to her chest as her TikTok follower count (which is at almost 1 million across her two accounts @EdenVictorria and @edenslife) continues to rise.

FOLLOW US ON WHATSAPP HERE: Stay across all the latest in celebrity, lifestyle and opinion via our WhatsApp channel. No comments, no algorithm and nobody can see your private details.