The video that made the bestseller is just 17 seconds long.
A man in a gray T-shirt and suspenders sits at his desk, types on the computer, corrects printouts, and sings along to the nursery rhyme-like song "Beautiful Boy (Darling Boy)" from the album "Double Fantasy" by John Lennon and Yoko Ono: "The monster's gone, your daddy's here".
The key message is in the text that appears: her father wrote a book for 14 years, writes the daughter who set up the @stonemaidens TikTok account.
During this phase he worked full-time and the children always came first for him.
But he still found time for the book, and that makes him happy - even if the novel didn't sell much.
"I would like to get him a few sales," the daughter continues, "he doesn't even know what TikTok is."
The wish came true: after the publication of the short video on the social media platform, which has since been viewed more than 40 million times (as of Monday afternoon), the novel »Stone Maidens«, published in 2012, rose to the list of the best-selling titles on the US mail order company Amazon #1 in the category "Police Mystery," #3 in "Murder Thrillers," and even #7 overall for books overall (also Monday afternoon).
Suddenly a bestselling author
According to his author biography, Lloyd Devereux Richards worked as a lawyer in Vermont and before that at an Indiana appeals court, where he was involved, among other things, with the complaint of a serial killer sentenced to death.
His debut novel »Stone Maidens« also revolves around a serial killer who is being tracked by a forensic anthropologist from the FBI.
It was published by Thomas & Mercer, one of the publishing brands that Amazon operates itself.
For the journalist Isabella A. Caldart, who defines herself as a “pop culture sociologist” on Twitter, the “Stone Maidens” phenomenon is a prime example of “the power of TikTok and BookTok”.
This ensures that "even completely unknown authors can go through the roof on newly created accounts," says Caldart in the text accompanying his own TikTok video.
BookTok is a subcommunity on TikTok that emerged around 2020.
Under the hashtag #BookTok, young people in particular review their favorite books in short, colorful video clips and present their book purchases.
Romance novels, thrillers and fantasy books from the »Young Adult« genre are particularly successful on #BookTok. Recommendations and the TikTok algorithm create new hypes about books that have been published for a long time, which has a real impact on sales figures and bestseller lists.
The best-known example of this is the American author Colleen Hoover.
Her novel »It ends with us« was published in 2016, but only became a bestseller when it was recommended on BookTok.
Hoover's books ranked seven in the New York Times' top ten paperback bestseller list last year.
Publishers and bookstores have now recognized the potential of #BookTok.
Piper and dtv have their own TikTok accounts.
The Frankfurt Book Fair also had its own BookTok stage in autumn.
89 percent top rating
In her TikTok analysis of the special BookTok case "Stone Maidens", Isabella A. Caldart emphasizes that the account was specially created and still got millions of views and likes within a few days.
A result of the TikTok algorithm, which relies less on "follower power" and instead flushes content from unknown users into their "For You" view.
And then there are "emotions that work on TikTok," says Caldart.
In any case, Lloyd Devereux Richards now knows what TikTok is and what power it has.
His daughter posted a video on the book's account of his reaction to the numerous comments on her clip.
"I'm overwhelmed," says the suddenly prominent hobby author understandably.
The video was also shown to German-speaking TikTok users, which is shown by comments such as "🕺😐 let's get the book man, I'm so sorry 😭😭😭" or "Aw how sweet I'll buy one too 😍".
But in addition to an impulse to buy out of sympathy and similar emotions, »Stone Maidens« has now also been read, if the more than 700 reviews on Amazon are to be believed.
Here, too, the reactions are overwhelming: 89 percent gave the top rating of five stars, another seven percent four stars.
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