8 Great Books That Wouldn't Exist Without Social Media
1/10Social media has changed nearly every aspect of our lives IRL...including the books we read. Thanks to Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, authors can engage with their readers in new and exciting ways, and these interactions have inspired books like John Green’s The Fault In Our Stars. Emerging voices like Lang Leav and Caroline Calloway have built massive followings through their literary posts, and publishers are noticing in a big way. Meanwhile, literary giants like David Mitchell and Jennifer Egan have used social media to release new stories, experimenting with a medium that adds a new dimension to their work. But the truth is, there are so many books that wouldn’t be on the shelves today without social media. Here are some of our favorites.
2/10The Fault in Our Stars by John Green
Before there was Hazel Grace Lancaster, there was Esther Grace Earl, a witty teen with an Internet presence who passed away from complications of thyroid cancer in 2010. While the hit novel’s protagonist is not based on Esther (Green drew from his experiences as a children’s hospital chaplain when creating Hazel), TFIOS is dedicated to her. After they met at the 2009 LeakyCon (a Harry Potter fan conference), Esther and Green struck up an online friendship, and she supported his decision to write TFIOS.
3/10This Star Won’t Go Out: The Life and Words of Esther Grace Earl
After Esther passed away, her family and friends created a tribute to her legacy by collecting her writing, art, and photographs, as well as composing personal essays of their own. It shares a name with This Star Won’t Go Out, the nonprofit organization founded by the Earl family in Esther’s honor. In the introduction to This Star Won’t Go Out, Green writes, “I am astonished that the book has found such a broad audience, but the person I most want to read it never will.”
4/10Love and Misadventure by Lang Leav
When Lang Leav’s collection, Love and Misadventure, was published, she had over 50K followers on Tumblr. Part of the “Instapoet” movement, Leav credits much of her success as a commercially-published author to her activity on social media. Her three books of whimsical love poems — Love and Misadventure, Lullabies, and Memories — have sold over 300,000 copies over the last three years.
5/10And We Were Like by Caroline Calloway
Okay, so this one’s not on the shelves yet. In fact, it doesn’t even have a publication date yet. But this Instagram novel is definitely worth a read, and according to 23-year-old Caroline Calloway’s recent posts, a book deal is in the works. Caroline documents her life as an American student at Cambridge University through “adventuregrams.” From falling in love with a Swedish polo player named Oscar, to attending Hogwarts-esque dinners, @carolinecalloway is a sweet, relatable YA memoir with over 500K devoted fans. (Tip: read it from the bottom up.)
6/10Slade House by David Mitchell
Literary giant David Mitchell released a short story, “The Right Sort,” over the course of a week on Twitter in 2014, to promote his then-latest novel, The Bone Clocks. But “The Right Sort” evolved into the first chapter of Slade House, which came out last November and features a creepy cast of characters, a disorienting alternate universe, and one heck of a haunted house.
7/10Humans of New York by Brandon Stanton
In 2010, photographer Brandon Stanton started taking photos of New Yorkers and interviewing them for a little blog called “Humans of New York.” That blog now boasts nearly 17 million fans on Facebook, and HONY posts end up our news feed almost every day. “Humans of New York” has become a fixture in our digital society, and so far, there are three books documenting the blog’s success: Humans of New York, Little Humans of New York, and Humans of New York: Stories.
8/10Last Night’s Reading: Illustrated Encounters with Extraordinary Authors by Kate Gavino
For years, Kate Gavino chronicled her experiences attending literary readings around New York City by sketching legendary authors and transcribing their most thought-provoking quotes of the night. She’d then post the illustrations on Instagram, where she amassed a fan following over 40K. Some of the writers included in the book are Neil Gaiman, George R.R. Martin, and Zadie Smith, among (over a hundred!) others.
9/10Binge by Tyler Oakley
In his memoir, YouTube superstar Tyler Oakley divulges some of his most cringe-worthy adolescent moments through the distinctive voice that catapulted his channel into a bona fide phenomenon. In an interview, Tyler explained that he would write in an office that had no internet, and worked in constant conversation with his editor. He said, “Honestly, this is the most fun I’ve ever had on working with something, just because after seven or eight years on YouTube, it just felt like a breath of fresh air in how to make content. And although I still love everything about YouTube, it was just kind of like a new little adventure.”
