My TikTok “For You” page is infiltrated by book talk, where fellow book lovers, like me, post their book recommendations, thoughts and opinions. They usually comment on the latest hyped-up books while also making reading-related jokes. I also came across a lot of TikToks about movie and TV show recommendations. It’s scary to see how well the TikTok algorithm is tailored to my tastes and interests, knowing exactly what will keep me scrolling for hours on the app. I came across a TikTok user the other day who really captured my attention. The creator’s tag was @someooatmeal and she talked about her job in the publishing industry as a literary scout.
A literary scout, something I’ve never heard of before, is someone who recommends books to film studios for adaptation. Most movies and TV shows these days are based on books, and production studios rely on literary scouts to recommend them the best new manuscripts so they can snatch film rights before anybody else can. Scouts are constantly reading manuscripts of forthcoming books to make sure their clients don’t miss out on the next big blockbuster. They also read books for translation rights, so if a literary scout reads a specific book and thinks it would do well in a particular country, they would recommend the story for those international clients to take a look at and get the translation rights.
As someone who is completely enthralled with storytelling in all forms: From movies, TV shows and books, I enjoy nothing more than escaping into a really good story. Reading for a living and finding amazing books that would be great on-screen hits felt like the ultimate dream job for me and I immediately wanted to learn more.
Like most jobs in the publishing industry, it is notoriously secretive and hard to get your foot in the door. The creator of the TikTok page @someooatmeal followed up with another video explaining how she successfully found her way in. She explains that having connections is really crucial. Since scouting is such a small part of the publishing world, such jobs don’t pop up on normal job boards like Indeed or LinkedIn, so you will need to keep an eye out on specific websites like bookjobs.com and publishersmarketplace.com. Having connections is beneficial because networks will send you jobs as they pop-up. Also having an internship at a publishing company, regardless of whether it’s directly related to scouting, will also help build those desired connections. Furthermore, reaching out to scouting agencies near you and asking if they need freelance readers to read the hundreds of manuscripts they receive daily would be a great start. Once again, having these crucial connections in the industry really helps!
Many of the movies released are just sequels to a larger franchise, reboots of older films, or are TV show adaptations of existing novels. Unless you are Bong-Jon Ho with the film Parasite, new ideas are hard to come by for screenwriters. Thus the amazing minds of authors are relied on for blockbuster hits with the help of literary scouts, who can quickly read multiple manuscripts at a time while also giving their detailed recommendations.
Amazingly, more and more people are getting back to reading for pleasure, using TikTok to share their recommendations. This also helps a lot of self-published and underrated writers garner more attention. It’s undeniable that this influence is due to the pandemic, and the long periods of isolation many of us endured during the last year had some benefits as we found joy in storytelling. At the end of the day, publishing is not considered to be a dying industry, and there are still plentiful jobs available for a new generation of writers and book lovers.