BookTube still drives discovery

A YouTube video called “the BEST books i read in 2025 (of the 137 i read)” pulled more than 49,000 views within minutes of being surfaced this week, and the format tells you a lot about how people still look for books online: not by scanning catalogs, but by asking one trusted reader to do the filtering first. (youtube.com) That video came from Jack Edwards, whose channel has about 1.59 million subscribers, and the pitch is brutally simple: one person read 137 books, then cut the list down to the few worth your time. (youtube.com) BookTube is the corner of YouTube where readers post wrap-ups, reading vlogs, shelf tours, and long reviews, and Penguin Random House said in June 2025 that readers in its 2023 panel discovered new books on YouTube about as often as on TikTok. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com) That matters because TikTok gets most of the headlines, but YouTube solves a different problem. TikTok is fast and good at making one title spike; YouTube gives a reader 15, 25, or 40 minutes of explanation before they spend $18 on a novel. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com) Penguin Random House’s survey said BookTube viewers use YouTube both to discover books and to research books they are already considering, which makes the platform act like both a recommendation engine and a second opinion. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com) The “best books I read” format is especially sticky because it removes two kinds of noise at once. It skips publisher release calendars, and it skips the creator’s mediocre reads, so the viewer gets a shortlist instead of a firehose. (youtube.com) You can see the same pattern all over YouTube right now: “Best Books I read in 2025,” “The Best Books I Read in 2025,” and even compilation videos built from more than 100 BookTube year-end lists are all circulating in search and recommendations. (youtube.com 1) (youtube.com 2) (youtube.com 3) That is different from old-school book coverage, which was built around publication date and review outlets. BookTube often works on reader time instead: a 2019 backlist novel can get pushed next to a 2025 release if both survive the same “best of the year” cut. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com) The publishing industry has been measuring this behavior for years. Penguin Random House said its broader consumer insights work has surveyed more than 40,000 readers on how they discover books and what pushes them to pick one up, which is why publishers now treat creator curation as research, not just publicity. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com) BookTube is smaller than it was at its peak, according to Penguin Random House, but “smaller” is not the same as weak. A platform with fewer creators can still be powerful if the remaining creators are the ones readers trust to sort 137 books into 10 worth buying. (authornews.penguinrandomhouse.com)