Waterstones is opening 10 new UK stores a year as younger adults turn to books as an escape from screens, with social media trends such as BookTok helping to drive sales growth.

The bookseller, which operates more than 320 shops under the Waterstones, Foyles, Hatchards and Blackwell’s brands, said sales were up 5% this year.

CEO James Daunt credited a rise in younger shoppers rediscovering reading through TikTok recommendations and in-person book clubs.

“People have come back to reading and buying books in bookshops as we have made a place which is an enjoyable and effective way to buy books,” Daunt told the Guardian.

“BookTok is an easy label to put on it, but this is about people wanting to read and talk about books.”

The rise in fiction sales is particularly strong. Waterstones said waves of interest in romance, ‘romantasy’ and fantasy are capturing the public’s imagination, with UK fiction sales up 12.2% last year, according to the Publishers Association.

That growth offset a 2.8% fall in children’s books and a decline in non-fiction, leaving the overall print book market down 1%. Digital sales, however, rose 17%.

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Daunt said younger adults are embracing reading because it is relatively inexpensive compared with other leisure activities, and collecting books can quickly become a habit.

“They want to do something not staring at a screen and relatively inexpensive, and once people start collecting books they just buy more,” he said.

Waterstones has been investing in making its stores more attractive places to visit, with cafés and staff-curated recommendations.

The retailer is also trialling new formats, from concessions inside department stores to locations in parts of the UK where it is less well known, such as Northern Ireland and Scotland.

After opening a successful branch inside John Lewis’s Oxford Street flagship, Waterstones has confirmed two more outlets within John Lewis department stores in Cheadle, Greater Manchester, and Bluewater, Kent. It already runs five shops inside Next stores as it tests partnerships in high-footfall retail destinations.

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