Bamboo Edition: Leverage BookTok and Bookstagram Influence to Reach New Audiences

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French independent publisher Bamboo Edition specialises in one of the country’s most popular literary genres: comics. For 25 years, the publisher has been publishing comics for all ages and on all subjects, from children’s fairy tales to informational and historical books, sports, young adults, fantasy or just plain funny. But while more and more French people are turning to comics for pleasure – this category was the second best-selling genre in 2023, growing by 14% since 2021 to reach 48% of the French public – reaching the right audience for such diverse, and often niche, titles comes with its own specific challenges. In this interview with Kolsquare, Fabrice Fadiga, Communications and Web Partnerships Director at Bamboo Edition, and Emma Gatto, Community Manager, explain how they use influencer marketing to find and grow the right audience for their catalogue. photo credit: Dominik Fusina


What is driving the growth of literary content on social media?
Fabrice Fadiga : Traditional means of communication and promotion no longer work. TV and magazine ads don't reach young people because they don't watch TV anymore, they don't buy magazines. What do they see most? Influencers and their phones. So the purely practical reason is to reach young people where they are. The first literary influencers, the BookTubers, now have millions of followers. Some started in high school and they started because traditional literary channels, like big bookstores, didn't convince them. They wanted to share their readings with other people. That's how it started to emerge and become the movement it is today. The old media have stabilised , and what used to be produced on YouTube is now produced on TikTok.

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BookTuber formats never made it to Instagram. Now, BookTok is taking everything by storm. Bookstagram didn’t have the boom we expected. BookTok is really a revolution in terms of its impact. The Song of Achilles [by M vp design officers email database adeline Miller] wasn’t a hit when it came out, but it completely exploded after a TikTok video. Publishers saw that, and without knowing exactly how and why the book was liked, they are trying to reproduce the same miracle.

Emma Gatto : It also has a less elitist side than bookstores. People go on Instagram, for example, to talk about what they are reading. There is no ambition to become an influencer in three months. It is almost like a reading diary rather than an account that aims to influence people.

What are the differences between communities and content on different platforms?
Emma Gatto : What makes TikTok so successful is the way content is consumed [quickly, one video after another], which doesn't leave much room to pause the video and comment. On Instagram - although the number of Reels shows how they are copying TikTok - there is still content with carousels, images, etc. that breathes a little more. You have more time to stop and look at an image, to read the description or the book review and learn about the life of the influencer. We will immediately see the first two or three comments, we will read them automatically and maybe that will make us want to enter the discussion.

Fabrice Fadiga : Being able to follow everything on Instagram is useful for a young content creator who doesn't have a big community. For the bigger ones, especially the ones who are paid, there are all the tools you need to see how many people you've reached. It can be complicated, but once you're there, it's the best way to assert your dominance. Instagram gives the illusion of power, of having a certain democracy or meritocracy when in reality the algorithm is quite capricious, especially depending on what Meta wants to push.