Axios
The BookTok community — ravenous readers who share reviews of their latest reads — is reshaping the streaming wars . Why it matters: Production studios are tuning in to influential creators and built-in fanbases, placing their bets on book adaptations to win viewers. What they're saying: "To me, it's a way of finding treasure," Hannah Griffiths, head of adaptations at independent production house Banijay, tells Axios. "It's such a sophisticated readership...they've done a lot of the work for you by sifting and finding the good material." By the numbers: Nearly half of the original drama series that premiered on Netflix , Disney + and Amazon Prime Video from January 2024 to June 2025 were book adaptations, according to a March report by the Publishers Association. Among the top 50 highest-grossing films from 2020 to 2024, adaptations earned 57% more at the box office than non-adaptations. And Amazon Prime Video's newly-revealed sizzle reel of upcoming projects is filled with book adaptations that found devoted audiences online. Zoom in: BookTok is a highly "accessible fan base, and it's a living fan base," that tells studios exactly what they want to see, Griffiths says. She added that production houses don't really "have to spend any money marketing these shows, because TikTok is going to do it for them." The intrigue: Built-in fan bases can translate into major payouts. While studios rarely disclose deal prices, leaks show popular titles can command multimillion-dollar deals. After an intense bidding war, Amazon MGM snapped up the movie rights to "The Last Letter," a novel by romantasy heavyweight Rebecca Yarros, for a reported $2 million in 2025. And more than 50 million BookTok-recommended books were sold in European book markets in 2025, bringing in more than €800 million in revenue, per data from NielsenIQ BookData. Zoom out: The success of some adaptations is paving the way for future content and proves there is money to be made for studios that choose the right titles. For example, Season 1 and 3 of " Bridgerton " are amongst Netflix's top ten most- watched series of all time. Season 3 of Amazon Prime's "The Summer I Turned Pretty" drew 70 million views in its first 70 days, boosted in part by BookTok fans who promoted the love interests with posts tagged #TeamConrad or #TeamJeremiah. Worth noting: Most adaptations so far have focused on contemporary romance, even as romantasy — a fast-growing genre that blends romance and fantasy — gains popularity. Fantasy concepts require more move magic to bring them to life, and the biggest titles have yet to premiere. Case in point: It has taken a notoriously long time for Yarros' bestselling romantasy, "Fourth Wing," to be developed. Amazon landed the rights in 2023. The bottom line: BookTok offers studios real-time consumer data, unlike traditional bestseller lists curated by editors, Victoria Marini, an agent at the High Line Literary Collective, tells Axios. "The math informs those editors, but they are ultimately meant to tell a story of what the country is reading." "Whereas BookTok data, no one is filtering that data to tell a story. It's just raw, and that makes it an easy bet to figure out what could be the next best TV show, what could be the next hit movie, so on and so forth." Go deeper: The power of "Bookstagram" and "Booktok" for writers of color
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