“Cozy crime” book recommendations have long-since popped up on the TikTok feed of Spotify’s audiobooks editorial manager, Roshni Radia.
“Think of crime or a murder that happens in a church graveyard, and the person who finds the body is an 80-year-old woman who’s been undervalued her whole life,” Radia explained. “She meets up with some friends to solve the crime — there’s no blood and no gore — that’s my genre of choice.”
While Radia acknowledged “cozy crime” is “too niche to impose on all Spotify listeners,” she helped launch Big on BookTok, a Spotify page for book lovers to listen to and share their own genres of choice. The page, created in partnership with TikTok, launched Wednesday.
“Our editorial wants to talk to every single book-loving community: On Valentine’s day, we’ll talk to the lovers of romance; and in January, we’ll talk to the lovers of new learning,” Radia, who manages editorial for Spotify’s Australian, New Zealand and European markets, told Campaign. “But it was a really interesting opportunity to talk to BookTok, which has an established nature and has already created its own community.”
#BookTok — a TikTok hashtag that’s accumulated 52 million book review and recommendation posts from readers and authors — inspired Big on BookTok. The page is available until November and will update every two weeks with new “current obsessions” and “hottest authors” based on data directly from TikTok.
The platform’s first batch of books includes The Summer I Turned Pretty, a title that’s accumulated 1 million TikTok posts and was developed into a hit Amazon Prime Video series; A Court of Thorns and Roses, a “romantasy” series mentioned in over 191,000 TikTok posts; and Wicked: The Life and Times of the Wicked Witch of the West, which Spotify labeled as a BookTok “current obsession” as Wicked fans anticipate the Wicked: For Good movie theater premiere in November.
“We’re encouraging people to share what they’re listening to — to feel the excitement at the chance to read or listen to something completely brand-new and realize, ‘this is wonderful, I need to tell everybody about it,’” Radia explained.
In addition to BookTok, Spotify’s recent campaigns highlight specific listening communities — from the August-launched Fan Life campaign for artist superfans to share “fandom” rituals,” to the 2021-launched Glow initiative bolstering LGBTQ+ artists with billboards, partnerships and designated page on the platform. It also launched in-app direct messaging for sharing songs, audiobooks and podcasts in August to further position itself as a social platform.
“BookTok is passionate about books, and they’re so keen to share that passion with each other,” Radia said. “We wanted to tap into that, and I hope this can help with that fun aspect of social sharing: listening to something on your phone and having a community right there in your hand.”
Spotify, the world’s leading streaming platform, has a selection of over 350,000 audiobooks and hosts over 696 million monthly active users worldwide. Its 2025 Q2 earnings reported 10% year-over-year revenue growth, and a 12% year-over-year subscriber increase.