TrendCore 08/26
📚 Amazon Has Cracked the BookTok Formula
Happy Monday, Wavemakers!
It was a rainy weekend here, which gave me the perfect excuse to stay inside and finally catch up on Maxton Hall. (If you haven’t watched it yet, I highly recommend it.) What surprised me wasn’t just how much I enjoyed it, but that one of Prime Video’s biggest global romance hits is actually a German production. Filmed primarily around where I went to film school in Potsdam-Babelsberg.
Over the past few months, I've also watched The Summer I Turned Pretty, Off Campus, and Every Year After. On the surface, they look like individual success stories aimed at Gen Z audiences. But the more I looked at them, the more I realised they are part of a much bigger strategy.
While most streaming companies are still chasing the next blockbuster, Amazon is playing a different game. Instead of spending years developing original ideas and hoping audiences eventually care, Amazon is increasingly looking at communities that have already proven their passion. Many of these stories first exploded on BookTok, where millions of readers recommended, reviewed and obsessively discussed them long before Hollywood ever showed interest.
BookTok is no longer just a niche corner of TikTok. According to TikTok and NielsenIQ BookData, more than 50 million BookTok-recommended books were sold across Europe in 2025, generating over €800 million in sales. Even more importantly for Amazon, more than one-third of people aged 16 to 39 now discover new books through BookTok. In other words, the platform has evolved into one of the world's most powerful audience discovery engines - offering entertainment companies real-time insight into what people genuinely care about, long before those stories ever reach the screen.
So, by the time Amazon acquires the adaptation rights, the hardest part has already been done - the audience already exists. And Amazon is turning those passionate online fandoms into an entertainment ecosystem spanning books, television, creators, merchandise, and even real-world fan conventions.
This isn’t a content strategy. It’s a fandom strategy.
1. BookTok Became Free Market Research
For decades, entertainment companies relied heavily on prediction.
Executives read scripts, commissioned pilots, organised test screenings and spent millions trying to predict what audiences might want. Sometimes they got it right. Often they didn’t.
BookTok has quietly changed that equation.
Every viral recommendation, every emotional review and every “you have to read this book” video generates something far more valuable than views. It creates evidence.
Millions of readers aren’t simply saying they like these stories - they’re buying the books, recommending them to friends, creating fan edits, debating characters and producing thousands of pieces of user-generated content completely free of charge.
That’s market validation no traditional focus group could ever replicate.
Instead of guessing which romance story might resonate, Amazon can simply look at where readers are already emotionally invested.
👉 Book sales become audience validation.
👉 TikTok becomes the world’s largest focus group.
👉 The comments section becomes an endless source of audience research.
It’s one of the cheapest and most effective development pipelines the entertainment industry has ever had.
2. Amazon Owns More of the Value Chain Than Anyone Else
This is where the strategy becomes particularly interesting. Most entertainment companies see a successful book as source material for a movie or TV series.
But Amazon sees something much larger. Because unlike almost every other entertainment company, Amazon controls multiple parts of the customer journey.
A fan might discover a novel through a BookTok creator. They buy the paperback on Amazon. Or download it on Kindle. Or listen through Audible. Later they watch the adaptation on Prime Video. Then they purchase merchandise. Maybe they even attend Obsessed Fest, Amazon Prime Video’s first fan convention dedicated entirely to romance adaptations.
Every interaction creates another opportunity for Amazon to deepen the relationship and generate revenue.
The television series is not the final product. It is another entry point into a much larger ecosystem.
Very few entertainment companies can connect storytelling, commerce and community at this scale.
3. Streaming Is Becoming Experiential
So, Amazon isn’t stopping at television. It is creating fan experiences.
For years, streaming platforms measured success through subscribers, viewing hours and completion rates. But fandom doesn’t stop when the credits roll.
👉 Fans want to meet the cast.
👉 They want behind-the-scenes stories.
👉 They want merchandise.
👉 They want to create TikToks, attend events and feel part of a community.
Amazon understands that the strongest entertainment brands don’t simply produce content.
They create worlds people want to belong to. And belonging is a remarkably powerful business model.
Fans don’t just watch Off Campus. They:
buy the books
watch reaction videos
create TikToks
attend live events
meet the cast
purchase merchandise
generate free marketing
It’s the same playbook Comic-Con helped pioneer - but applied to romance.
🔓 Behind the Paywall: Explore the Community Commerce Flywheel
In this week’s deep dive, I’m exploring why Amazon’s strategy could represent the next evolution of entertainment - the shift from content companies to community companies.
I’ll break down Amazon’s Community Commerce Flywheel, why Netflix faces a structural disadvantage, and why the next billion-dollar franchises may not come from Hollywood studios at all - but from communities that already exist.
