TikTok Viral Fantasy Novel The Atlas Six Is Becoming An Amazon Series
BookTok is leaking and it's too late to stop its favorite YA series from taking over the world! Kind of.
If your brain hasn't rotted and you don't spend an alarming amount of time swiping through what is unfortunately the generation-defining app TikTok, all of this might be brand new information for you, so let me break it down real quick. The TikTok algorithm is frighteningly good at its job. It can quickly figure out what kinds of content you're into and then recommend even more videos about that content. There's "FoodTok" if you're into cooking videos, "WitchTok" if you're into witchy stuff and there are so many other general and niche sides to TikTok, that categorizing them all feels impossible.
BookTok is an especially popular slice of the TikTok pie, and while there are so many users posting about books that it feels simplistic to generalize them, they're really into YA series. And fantasy series. And erotica. And sometimes erotic fantasy series? Anyway, "The Atlas Six," which started picking up steam on TikTok over the summer of 2021 and continued to have a ton of videos recommending it well into fall, seems to include all of BookTok's favorite things. Basically it's about magicians who are also hot.
It gets extra points for having "dark academia" elements, which is both an aesthetic and a series of tropes that you're probably familiar with even if the name doesn't ring any bells. Think Donna Tartt's "The Secret History" (the OG of the genre), Mona Awad's "Bunny," Elisabeth Thomas's "Catherine House," Leigh Bardugo's "The Ninth House," or Alex Michaeledis' "The Maidens." And those are just the books I can personally vouch for. There are a ton of other stories featuring emo school kids that get pulled dark, fantastical situations. They're mostly a fun time!
The Amazon TikTok Collaboration No One Ever Needed
And according to Deadline, it's coming to an Amazon account near you. The streaming service/world's most powerful bookstore was able to snap up the rights to "The Atlas Six" and will be creating a TV series based on its hot magic plot. They'll be working with Brightstar, the production company started by "The Crown" producer Tanya Seghatchian and "Cold War" producer John Woodward, as well as the author Alexene Farol Follmuth, who self published "The Atlas Six" under the pen name Olivie Blake, and will be serving as executive producer of the series. If you're wondering if Follmuth originally self published the series via Amazon's Kindle Digital Publishing, you're very perceptive and you're very correct.
It's a win-win for Amazon to acquire the TV rights for a wildly popular book that only became wildly popular after it was published with their tools. We don't have to think very hard to come up with examples of Amazon's cultural domination, but this one feels especially farm to table. "The Atlas Six" was birthed on Amazon and to Amazon it shall return. A prodigal IP that will certainly birth more sequels from Follmuth (she's already planning the next book) and more seasons for Amazon. Welcome to the present. It's been this way and it's only getting more this way.