No one can ignore the tumultuous shifts happening across the internet and their implications for fostering online community within the publishing industry. In recent months, major changes to platforms such as X, updates to Meta policies (which will impact Facebook, Instagram, and Threads), and the uncertain future of TikTok have many users reconsidering which online spaces to show up to, or whether to show up at all. For the children’s publishing industry, which is in the midst of its own social media shuffle, this means finding new places for the kid lit community to thrive.
At X, the shifts have included the implementation of paid subscriptions, and most notably the replacement of third-party fact checking with “community notes” edited by users on the platform. The vibe shift had been looming: “Twitter grew increasingly toxic and combative in the years leading up to the 2016 election,” says author-illustrator Jarrett J. Krosoczka, and users began to leave in droves as X owner Elon Musk forged closer ties with Donald Trump in the run up to the 2024 election.
Back when X was still Twitter, it was the hub for children’s publishing networking and community. “The kid lit community was so vibrant,” says Kate McKean, VP at Howard Morhaim Literary Agency. “It was a net good for writers in how it gave them access to information and opportunities in the traditional publishing world that they might not have had access to otherwise. It was great for agents and editors, too. You got what you put into it.”
Author Laurel Snyder, who left the platform last November, says, “In the very early days, I genuinely loved Twitter. It felt sort of loose and messy and full of serendipity. Some of my very best friendships to this day are with people I initially met on Twitter.”
Twitter was once beloved, but it was never perfect. Even before Musk bought the company in 2022, interactions easily slipped into combative or hostile conversation, leading to trolling. Snyder is one of many who have been victims of online harassment on the platform, with an incident in 2019 that forced her to temporarily step away. “I can’t imagine how much worse it might be these days when something like that goes down,” Snyder says. “All the guardrails seem to be gone.”
What’s Next?
Though many have left, X isn’t the land of tumbleweeds just yet. Some have stuck around for a variety of reasons, including the difficulty of recreating their networks on a myriad of bubbling platforms. “The exodus was refracting into too many places to really successfully migrate the community,” says author Ryan La Sala, who is still active on X. “Now, we’re all just posting on nine platforms at once, and it’s a very strange and strained cacophony.”
X is “certainly quieter” these days, La Sala says. The community is different without its veteran publishing names, and without the “sanctimonious scolds in the kid lit community. At first this was an unexpected relief, but now I find I miss even them.” The consensus seems to be that golden era of kid lit Twitter has come to an end, but as for what comes next, there’s hesitation.
“I think a lot of people got burned by Book Twitter communities collapsing,” says Eric Smith at P.S. Literary Agency. “When you’ve invested so much time in a place, only to see it wrecked so quickly, it’s hard to think about rebuilding elsewhere when you’ve got that fear it might happen again.”
The hustle to find the next platform that could house the children’s publishing community came with many questions. As the community explored alternative online spaces (Mastodon, Discord, and others), there was no consensus—until one platform seemed to rise above the others: Bluesky. The social app, which started as a research project at Twitter undertaken by cofounder Jack Dorsey but has been an independent company since 2021, has jumped from nine million users last September to 20 million in November, according to ZDNet.
“Bluesky is the platform I’m most optimistic about,” says author Kate Messner. “The kid lit community there is still very much a work in progress, but I’m hopeful it’s going to be a place where people who care about books and young people can continue to connect in meaningful ways to do good work in the world.”
Krosoczka agrees, noting that Bluesky “feels like early-days Twitter”—an energy many are hoping to recreate, sans the hostility that Twitter and X became known for.
When it comes to the ins and outs of Bluesky, many have turned to author-illustrator Debbie Ridpath Ohi, who has been a prominent voice there. As an early adopter (she joined in June 2023), she’d decided that Bluesky “had the most potential” and took up the mantle to help other members of the children’s publishing industry find each other during a trying transitional phase. Along with fellow creators Charlene Chua, Brian Kirby, and a host of volunteer moderators, Ohi offers starter packs (compiled lists of users, such as “High School English Teachers” or “YA agents”) and MegaFeeds that center on children’s book news, allowing users to find the community they’d lost in the changeover.
“I’m cautiously optimistic about Bluesky, which still feels like a safe and community-focused space to me, despite its growing popularity,” Ohi says. “Social media actually feels social.”
Another option in light of the “X-odus” has been Threads, which launched in 2023. But Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg recently announced that the social media company will be ending its fact-checking program and shifting to community notes, like X. And while Threads enjoyed a bump in traffic post-election, according to the Wrap, with these changes, Threads could share X’s fate. (“A Meta platform is no better than Twitter,” says Dutton Books executive editor Andrew Karre.)
La Sala joined Threads in 2023 but says they’ve “given up” on the platform, predicting there will be “an over-correction into a territory that will make the app not only un-fun but dangerous. So, goodbye!”
Krosoczka notes, “Since Meta’s use of AI has been
dubious, and with the recently announced closing of its fact-checking program, I see people swearing off the use of Instagram and Threads.” The fact that Threads is the newest Meta platform makes it “the easiest of all the Meta platforms to step away from, because we aren’t as entangled in it. The ball is in Bluesky’s court.”
Vibe Check
Kate McKean
“The kid lit community [on Twitter] was so vibrant. It was great for agents and editors, too. You got what you put into it.”
Ryan La Sala
“Now, we’re all just posting on nine platforms at once, and it’s a very strange and strained cacophony.”
Jarrett J. Krosoczka
“My platform of choice is texting with my friends in the kid lit community. I’m over trying to find the next shiny new thing.”
Chloe Gong
“I think many of us are just kind of baffled and are still holding on hope that TikTok will be saved. There will definitely be a void if TikTok is banned.”
Debbie Ridpath Ohi
“I don’t think we’ll ever be able to recapture the same innocence of early social media days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The world has changed, and social media changes along with it.”
Banned together
TikTok users are also scrambling to figure out what comes next during a tumultuous time for the app. A ban on TikTok that was introduced in 2020 by Trump and was set to take place on Jan. 19, 2025, left users unable to access the app for approximately 12 hours. Access was restored for another 75 days just before Trump’s second inauguration via an executive order, with the future of the platform still up in the air.
The book community on TikTok, known as BookTok, has had a significant impact on the children’s publishing industry, acting as a space for readers to find new writers, and catapulting authors’ careers to new heights. One such author is Lynn Painter, whose 2021 YA romance Better Than the Movies became a BookTok favorite. Painter describes TikTok as a “magical word-of-mouth machine that’s single-handedly responsible for my books landing in so many new readers’ hands.”
Georgia Henry, director of the Pitch Agency, a U.K. marketing agency, notes that the reaction from the BookTok community to the ban “has been mixed, with many not wanting to believe what could be their reality.”
Author Chloe Gong says of the writer community, “I think many of us are just kind of baffled and are still holding on hope that TikTok will be saved. There will definitely be a void if TikTok is banned.”
Readers on TikTok have dictated trends, created bestsellers out of backlist and self-published titles, and helped the industry to find new writers. But finding the next BookTok blockbuster has become a priority in acquisitions, which has created “a flattening effect in the industry,” Gong says. “BookTok is so successful when it works that the industry at large has simplified its marketing efforts to favor BookTok virality. I would be sad over the loss of the app, as it means less opportunity for writers to get in front of the reader directly. But on the other hand, I hope a loss would force course correction in the traditional publishing industry to support a variety of books and diversify which writers it puts its energy behind.”
If it takes effect, the TikTok ban will be felt across the industry. “It’s a shame to lose a space where creators have found successful homes, but writers and readers are resilient,” Painter says. “I am positive they will find a new place to lay down their amazing content.”
Users are preparing to pivot. According to Reuters, in the days preceding the initial TikTok ban, close to three million new U.S. users flocked to Xiaohongshu, a Chinese social media app also known as RedNote. “I don’t know if it’ll have staying power and if the BookTok community will form there,” Gong says. “But I do think it’s funny to tell my relatives in China that the possible ban of TikTok is what got me onto their platform.”
Henry points to YouTube as another potential BookTok replacement. “This comes in line with a wider industry push for long-form content, a format that has been heading for a renaissance long before talk of the TikTok ban.”
Substacks and personal blogs are also alternative paths, highlighting the desire of some to see longform content creation make a comeback and also have more control over their work. “It’s a good reminder to all of us—and particularly authors—to build online presences we can control,” Karre says. “I’m pleased to see newsletters and personal blogs spring to life again alongside less centralized social platforms like Bluesky.”
There is a feeling of fatigue when it comes to platform hopping, leaving many with the sense of leaving a party that died out too soon, and everyone clambering to find the best after-party. “It has been exhausting to keep up with,” Krosoczka says. “Every author I chat with is exasperated.”
For some, the answer might be letting the after-party go on without them. “My platform of choice is texting with my friends in the kid lit community,” Krosoczka adds. “I’m over trying to find the next shiny new thing.”
This social media shakeup has some considering the purpose of being online. “It gives us an opportunity to step back and reflect on our values—on what we want from social media in the first place, on who we want to be there and how we might lift up others via our platforms,” Messner says. “The chance to reset is an opportunity to follow people who share those values and want to build positive supportive communities together.”
“My hope for the future is that we’ll find ways to talk productively and enthusiastically about books we love and books we’re excited about, and where we want things to be going,” says Cheryl Klein, editorial director of Workman Kids, who migrated from X to Bluesky. “Because I feel like that sort of discussion has gotten lost in the last five or so years.”
But what’s become clear through this process is it was never truly about the platforms themselves. “Kid lit was on Twitter, but it wasn’t Twitter that defined kid lit,” McKean says.
And even divided across several apps, the kid lit community, as always, remains hopeful. “I don’t think we’ll ever be able to recapture the same innocence of early social media days, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing,” Ohi says. “The world has changed, and social media changes along with it. It will be interesting to see where we all are, when the dust settles.”
