Felicity Vallence Talks Booktok & Romantasy on WSJ’s “The Journal”
With a Supreme Court hearing scheduled for today, Friday, January 10, everyone is talking about the future of TikTok. Amid the buzz, Felicity Vallence, Director of Digital Marketing, Penguin Young Readers, was featured in late December on the Wall Street Journal podcast “The Journal” where she discussed the impact BookTok has had on the publishing industry.
In an interview with WSJ producer Jessica Mendoza, Felicity emphasized the importance of a two-way conversation with readers, TikTok’s role in shaping book discovery, and why no one should judge the literary value of romantasy and other genres popular on BookTok.
Felicity commented: “I think to judge someone’s reading tastes is really dangerous. Reading is such an enjoyable pastime that we want people to not feel pressured to read the ‘right books.’ We want them just to be entertained and have fun … I think people have different tastes. And the tastes of someone who reads 20 books a year versus the person who reads two books a year are wildly different.”
WSJ notes that “looming over all of this is a possible ban on TikTok,” and that “there’s a real risk that the platform goes away. But even if that happens, a lot of other social media sites now operate the way TikTok does, so BookTok’s legacy is likely to live on.”
You can listen to the 20 minute episode here, which also features interviews with Leah Koch, co-owner of the romance bookstore Ripped Bodice, and romantasy author Penn Cole.